The Path He Chose to Follow
by RydenStewart
Summary: In another life, Harry made few choices. Here, he controls his own fate. Harry Potter's second year at Hogwarts involves a duelling club, an invisible man named Peter Pettigrew, an incompetent Defence teacher, and a deep suspicion that Albus Dumbledore might be a Dark Wizard. Smart!Harry. Independent!Harry. Neville as Harry's best friend. (sort of a self-insert, too)
1. Summer

**Author's Note:**_ I'm back! This is the sequel to the Road Not Taken, which covers first year. You should probably read that if you want to understand some of the references, but I suppose if you just read on it's not hard to pick up what's happening. _

_Recap: Su's from an alternate universe - our universe - and has read up to Goblet of Fire. She befriended Harry in Diagon Alley in Ollivander's wand store, and changed the course of the plot. His best friends are now Neville and Su. Malfoy is not his worst enemy. He is good at potions. Quirrell kidnapped the trio at the end of First Year, and there was drama. And trauma. Now, they are determined to be prepared for whatever might come their way. Also weird dreams and foreshadowing. Also, independent!Harry, smart!Harry, confident(ish)!Neville... and no Romance for those less than fourteen. _

* * *

**~ Summer ~**

Harry Potter was feeling rather miserable. Though the sun shone brightly outside his window, he found himself recalling a different sort of fire… trapping him and his best friend in a room with a mirror and a madman.

The events of the last year were a bit of a blur – discovering he was a wizard, befriending Su Li and Neville Longbottom, joining the Quidditch team as Seeker, the adventure with a three-headed dog… and getting kidnapped by Professor Quirrell, who turned out to have Voldemort in the back of his head.

Now, three weeks out of school, Harry was feeling as trapped as he ever had while at the Dursleys. They'd locked all his school stuff away in the cupboard under the stairs, never mind that Harry had holiday homework. The cupboard had once been his bedroom, too, but now he lived in what was previously Dudley's second bedroom/trash disposal room. It was as much of a prison as his cupboard had ever been.

To make matters worse, despite their promises, neither of Harry's so-called best friends had written to him all summer. He'd written countless letters to them, but received no reply.

Then, on the twelfth of July, someone rang the doorbell.

Aunt Petunia answered the door, and was surprised to find herself face to face with a young Chinese girl, no more than eleven or twelve, smiling sweetly up at her. Petunia squinted suspiciously at the girl, but there didn't seem to be anything out of place about her – dressed ordinarily in jeans and a flowery blouse, not like those ridiculous robes that those… those _people _often decked themselves out in.

The girl must have been a friend of Dudley's. Or perhaps a relative of one of the neighbours.

"Hello," the girl said, smiling. "Are you Mrs Dursley, by any chance?"

"I am," Petunia smiled back at the girl.

"I'm Su," the girl said. "Su Li. I was wondering… is Harry around?"

Petunia froze.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Is Harry around? Harry Potter. You see, it's my birthday today – I'm turning twelve – and I wanted to invite him to my party. And – if it were okay with you – I was hoping he might stay with me for the rest of the holidays."

Petunia Dursley blinked. Taking that freak off her hands for the rest of the summer… it sounded like a dream come true. But other times she'd tried to get rid of the boy, he'd always shown up again, dragged along by that nasty old man with his twinkling eyes.

_This had better not be a trick_, Petunia thought crossly.

"Boy!" She shouted. "Come down here!"

Harry scampered down the stairs, expecting to be given more chores – like weeding the garden, or walking down to the market to buy groceries. He didn't expect to see his best friend, standing at the door, looking innocent as a daisy.

"Su?"

"Hello, Harry," Su waved, still standing in the doorway. "I was hoping to invite you to my birthday party today. The Weasleys are hosting – their mum insisted – and she'd like you to stay over for the rest of the holidays, if that was okay with you."

"Really?"

"Haven't you been getting my letters?" Su asked, puzzled.

"No," Harry frowned. "You've been sending letters?"

"Drat," Su frowned. "I'd hoped it would work if I sent them through the muggle mail. Never mind that, Harry – do you want to come? If it's all right with your Aunt and Uncle."

"Aunt Petunia, may I go?" Harry asked, holding his breath. _Please, please, please_.

She regarded them warily, and then sniffed.

"Fine," she said. "But don't expect us to take you to King's Cross Station in September. If those freaks want to take you, then I don't want you back 'til June."

Su and Harry exchanged excited glances. "Go get your stuff, Harry, I'll wait here."

Harry raced up the stairs to his bedroom, hurriedly throwing everything he owned – not much – into a rucksack, and then running back downstairs. Aunt Petunia had already unlocked the cupboard where all his school things had been kept. Su helped him lug his trunk over to the car waiting for them outside, and then, finally, they were on their way.

Harry didn't even bother saying goodbye.

"So you've been writing to me?" Harry asked, suddenly.

"All summer," Su nodded. "I wrote you through the muggle mail system, because I worried that your family wouldn't let you get any owls – magic and all that. Someone must be monitoring your mail. I mean, where are all your fan letters?"

"Fan letters?" Harry blinked. Su rolled her eyes.

"Yes, fan letters. You _are_ a celebrity after all. I bet loads of people wrote to you after you defeated Darth Volder. Someone must have been monitoring the mail so that no one could send you anything cursed."

"Cursed?" Harry squeaked.

"Well, you did defeat a Dark Lord," Su's Aunt Beatrice told him, driving the car. "A lot of You-Know-Who's supporters weren't very happy with you. There's a reason why your location is classified in the ministry – so that those supporters of You-Know-Who still at large can't find you and hurt you."

"Oh." Harry turned back to Su, who was bouncing excitedly in her seat, humming. "So… it's your birthday today, Su?" She nodded. "I haven't got you a present, you know."

"If you want to, we can stop by Diagon Alley," Beatrice offered. "We've got to swing by there anyway, because I have some robe orders I want to pick up. And Su wants to buy a book on Ancient Runes and their healing applications."

"For your eyes," Su whispered to Harry. "Or to fix your glasses."

They parked a few blocks away from the Leaky Cauldron, and walked the rest of the way. They didn't stop in to eat, though Harry waved to Tom the barkeep, and then they walked through the pub and into Diagon Alley.

It was as wonderful as Harry remembered – there were all sorts of things to see. People bartering over Dragon's Liver, and ordering up a barrel of newt eyes at the apothecary. There were books about invisibility and monsters in the window of Flourish and Blotts, and already there were a handful of Hogwarts students trickling into Madam Malkin's robe shop to upsize their uniforms.

Aunt Beatrice led the pair into Gringotts, where Harry realised, quite suddenly, that he didn't have his key. Hagrid must have kept it from last year, or Dumbledore.

"Just ask a goblin," Beatrice assured him. "If you have proof of blood right, they'll make you up a new key. People lose theirs all the time."

"Blood right?" Harry asked.

"It's not hard," Beatrice assured him. "They'll give you a blood quill, you write your name with it, and they confirm your identity. It won't do any lasting damage unless you use it too much. There are laws against that, fortunately."

"Come on, Harry," Su tugged him towards an empty booth. "Aunt Bea will be fine on her own. Besides I want to ride the carts! It's like a rollercoaster!"

"All right," Harry followed her too the booth, where the goblin working there looked up at them and sneered. Harry wondered if he was trying for a smile.

"Names?" The goblin asked.

"Harry Potter, sir," he said. "I was hoping to access my vault, only… well. I've not got my key, sir."

"Lost, is it?" The goblin scoffed.

"Somebody else has it." Harry explained

"Your guardian?"

"Er, I don't think so." The goblin sat up at this, and squinted at him.

"Explain," he hissed.

"Er, well, my guardians are my aunt and uncle," Harry told him. "But I think that Headmaster Albus Dumbledore has my vault key."

"Hmmm," the goblin laced his fingers together, deep in thought. "Most unorthodox. Do you wish for us to create a new key for you?"

"If it's not too much trouble," Harry admitted.

The goblin pulled out a thick booklet of paperwork and a quill. "Sign your full name, here, and initial – all three now – here, here, here, here…"

There were about twenty places to initial, and Harry ignored the painful itching in his left hand until he was done. Putting down the quill, he lifted his hand and winced at the initials carved there – HJP. The goblin handed him a Band-Aid decorated with little animated golden snitches.

"That's ghastly," Su whispered, eyeing the scratches in his hand. "Who on earth invented those? If they're going to take blood from your veins, they don't need to maim you in the process."

"That will heal up in a few minutes," the goblin assured Harry, ignoring Su. He dipped his hand into a drawer behind the counter, and handed Harry a thin gold wire. As soon as it dropped into Harry's palm, the wire shivered, and began to reshape itself, until Harry soon had a small gold key in his hand.

"Do you have a chain, or something, that he can keep it on?" Su asked.

"Anti-theft, Loss-Prevention chains are two galleons each, when charmed dragon-hide." The goblin informed them. "Gold ones are five galleons. Silver are three galleons."

"I'll take one of the dragon-hide ones, please," Harry told the goblin, who scribbled something on a piece of paper, and then drew out a necklace made of small brown chain links – tanned and charmed dragon-hide.

"The two galleons have been removed from your account," the goblin informed Harry. "Would you like to be taken to your vault, now?"

"Yes please."

The goblin waved them behind the counter, stopping when Su moved to follow.

"She's not authorised," the goblin growled.

"She's with me," Harry assured him quickly. Su smiled gratefully at him. The goblin frowned, but didn't protest further.

The cart ride down to the vault was as fast and frightening as Harry remembered, though Su enjoyed herself. "It's like flying," she said to him. "Don't you think?"

"A little," Harry shrugged, but there was something missing. _The sky_, he thought.

He opened his vault, and took a moment to gape at the mounds of money before him; gold, silver, and bronze, spilling all over the floor.

"Harry," Su breathed. "How much money do you _have_?"

The goblin pulled out a piece of parchment, and handed it to Su.

"Two thousand, one hundred and eighty three galleons, four thousand and twelve sickles, and eight thousand four hundred and nine knuts."

"So your net worth is…" Su frowned as she concentrated. Harry wondered if she was calculating in her head. "Twenty-nine knuts to a sickle, seventeen sickles to a galleon. That's almost two hundred and ninety galleons in knuts, about two hundred and thirty-six galleons in sickles… Harry, you're worth about twenty seven hundred galleons. If a sickle is equivalent to about a pound, then seventeen by twenty seven hundred… that's about forty-six thousand pounds. Impressive. So if we put aside, say, two hundred and fifty galleons for the next six years of your schooling – that's for emergencies or expensive Quidditch supplies, as well as potions ingredients and textbooks. Then save up about five hundred galleons for post-graduation, in case you want to travel the world before you find a job and so on… you still have about seven hundred galleons to spare, you can buy plenty of clothes and essentials with that!"

"Su… did you just do all that in your head?" Harry squinted at her.

"Well, yes," Su blushed. "Math has always been one of my better subjects."

"Wow."

"Right, well, do you deal with credit cards, Mr… uh?"

"Snapfang," the goblin told her. "Yes, we do. Fiendishly difficult things, though – all those electronic transactions and false bank names. We have a starting fee of ten galleons, with a three galleon payment yearly."

"Er, what about just for the summer?" Harry asked.

The goblin scowled. "Yearly. Or nothing."

"It beats lugging around a giant bag full of money," Su shrugged. "What do you think?"

"I don't really need all that much money," Harry admitted. "If I get about four hundred quid worth converted, then that should be more than enough, just for shoes and clothes, you know. I'll get another twenty galleons for your birthday present."

"Twenty!" Su gaped. "I don't think you need to spend that much on me."

Harry shrugged. "Just in case." He said. "Otherwise, I'll have leftovers I can spend on myself." Su rolled her eyes.

"Fine."

They walked out of Gringotts feeling a good deal richer than when they went in. Harry made Su promise not to peek at her presents and sent her off to explore Flourish and Blotts while he made his purchases.

First he went to the Owl Emporium and bought Hedwig a whole bag of treats. Next, he went to the apothecary, and purchased two Journeyman's Potion kits for four galleons each, one for himself, and one for Su. In Flourish and Blotts, making sure not to be seen by Su, he went and bought a couple of books on the subjects she'd been interested in last year – Ancient Runes, travel charms (expansion charms, portkey charms, feather-light charms, water-proofing charms…), and Healing. He also got several books about Herbology and building your own greenhouse for Neville, as well as a selection of seeds for interesting plants he thought Neville might like.

All of these presents he had shrunken down, and then he put them in a box in his pocket, before finding Su in the back of Flourish and Blotts, deep in a discussion about Time Turners with her Aunt.

Su had finally gotten around to asking her Unspeakable guardian whether or not the Hogwarts teachers had time turners. It took a lot of wheedling and round-about questions, but she finally puzzled out that yes, the teachers had time turners, but were carefully monitored for misbehaviour, no, Beatrice highly doubted that anyone would give a student a time-turner unless Dumbledore himself requested it.

That man had far too much power, in Beatrice's opinion, and she wandered off, leaving her adopted niece to her thoughts.

_That explains Hermione in the third book. _Su thought. _She was one of Dumbledore's favourites, and a close friend of Harry Potter's. She can't have been the only one who ever wanted to take more subjects than her schedule could handle – there's a whole house of us in Ravenclaw!_

Ever since falling victim to a time-space displacement accident following her... well... _death_, as far as anyone could tell, Su had fallen into the fictional – or not so fictional now – world of Harry Potter, a book series she had grown up reading, though she'd only read up to the fourth book.

Last year, in Diagon Alley, she'd made a decision that changed the course of her life… and the course of the plot. She'd befriended Harry Potter, and turned the whole world, as she knew it, on its head.

This year, she was determined not to fall victim to basilisks, incapable Defence teachers, scheming headmasters, or mysterious diaries. She was going to stop Ginny Weasley from ever opening the Chamber of Secrets and try and figure out a way to get Sirius Black proven innocent – because dementors were just not cool.

Her best friends, Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom, after getting kidnapped by Professor Quirrell with Voldemort on the back of his head, were equally determined to train themselves so that they'd never be caught off-guard or unprepared again.

At least… that was the plan.

"Hey, Su!" Harry appeared next to her. Startled, Su brought out her wand and would've poked Harry's eye out if he'd not been wearing glasses. "OW!"

"Sorry," Su put her wand away, blushing. Harry rubbed his nose.

"You're still jumpy, huh." It wasn't a question.

In all fairness, it had been less than a month since a literal two-faced madman had kidnapped them and tried to make them fetch him the Philosopher's Stone. That wasn't an adventure Su was likely to forget any time soon.

"A little." She said. Harry nodded.

"Well, I've got everything I need."

"We'll take you into London later to buy you proper muggle clothes," she pulled a face as she looked him up and down, wearing Dudley's massive hand-me-downs. "Something that fits. Maybe something green, for your eyes. Green's my favourite colour, you know."

"I thought you liked blue," Harry replied, surprised.

"I do," Su shrugged. "I look better in blue. But green's my favourite colour."

She looked him straight in the eye – his green eyes – and Harry blushed.

"Right."

Su just grinned, her expression cheeky, and light.

"Quit teasing, Su," Harry rolled his eyes, though the blush had yet to fade.

"All right," she smirked. "Aunt Bea will get her things, and then we'll be off to the Weasleys for my birthday party! Yay!"

* * *

The Burrow was the Weasley home, and though it was crooked and wobbly, and looked like it was only being held up by magic – which it probably was – Harry thought it was brilliant. There were five chimneys up on the big red roof, and all around the front door there lay a jumble of gumboots and chickens and one rusty cauldron.

Inside, there was the sound of chatter and laughter, and all in all, to Harry, it seemed like the most wonderful, comfortable place on earth.

"HARRY!" The door slammed open to reveal both Weasley twins, though one's hair was blue and the other's a bright magenta. "You've made it! Hullo, Su!"

"Hi Fred, hi George!" Su waved to each of them. They pouted.

"How can you tell?" George whined.

"We even changed colours while you were gone," Fred added.

"Your voices are a bit different," Harry offered. "And Fred's a bit taller."

"Ha!" The magenta haired boy pointed at his brother. "I _told_ you so!"

"Harry's only saying that," George waved a dismissive hand.

"Come on, birthday girl," both boys grabbed one of Su's hands, leaving Harry to follow behind, amused. "Mum's got everything all set up. She loves girls – spoils Gin. I think she wishes we all had long swishy princess hair like yours."

George ruffled the hair in question, and Su laughed as it turned a bright sapphire blue, which matched her Ravenclaw colours quite well.

"Come on, Harry!" She called over her shoulder. "You're missing all the fun!"

Harry grinned and jogged to catch up. They Weasley twins marched Su straight through the house, so Harry only got a few seconds to gape at how much bigger the house was on the inside, with all sorts of things floating around on their own – the dishes washing themselves, and a hovering training broom the size of his shoe buzzing around the living room like a mad thing.

"Mum! Look what we found!" The twins shouted, carrying Su into the backyard, her toes dangling over the grass. "Can we keep it?"

"Fred! George! What on earth have you done to her hair?" Mrs Weasley gasped.

"It's all right, Mrs Weasley," Su assured her. "I like blue."

"But the photographs!"

"Calm down mum," George put his arm around Mrs Weasley's shoulders.

"We'll fix it," Fred pulled a spray bottle out of his pocket, and squirted whatever potion was inside over Su's hair, combing it through. Her hair turned mostly black again, with a few blue streaks peeking out.

"Oh, you poor dear," Mrs Weasley muffled Su in a great warm hug that smelled like roast lamb and rosemary. Then she spotted Harry.

"Harry! How good to see you!" Harry found himself unable to breathe, wrapped up in Mrs Weasley's embrace. "Look at you, you're so skinny! Come along, dear, we're just about to have lunch. Do you like the decorations?"

There were balloons everywhere, and a bunch of people running about the yard or mingling by the lunch table. Ron Weasley and Oliver Wood were on their brooms, practicing their Quidditch skills. Oliver was telling Ron that he had the potential to be a fine Keeper. Neville was speaking to a small redheaded girl, who must have been the youngest Weasley – Harry vaguely remembered her from Platform Nine and Three Quarters when Uncle Vernon had picked him up from King's Cross Station.

There was a massive cake, that Harry was not sure could be eaten by a gathering their size – or even, really, a gathering of a hundred.

"She wanted every flavour in there," Su admitted to Harry in a low voice. "Chocolate, vanilla, strawberry… I'm holding out for the hazelnut. I love hazelnuts."

"BIRTHDAY GIRL!" Someone shouted. All of a sudden Su's friends swarmed at her, battling for her attention. Oliver Wood pushed through the crowd, lifting her up in a hug and twirling her around. He was pushed aside by Hermione Granger, Padma Patil, and Cho Chang, who also hugged her excitedly. She shook hands with Percy Weasley and Arthur Weasley – the Weasley patriarch – as well as a few men and a woman that Harry didn't recognise (he was told later that they were Beatrice's co-workers in the Department of Mysteries, Alfred Yao, Sherlock Pearl, and Madam Locke).

"Yao's family will be here later," Su told him, a little breathless from all the hugging. "David's a fifth year Ravenclaw now – we all hope he'll make prefect this year."

"Hullo, Su," Neville grinned at them. Su beamed and wrapped both her best friends up in a happy group hug.

"I've missed you guys," she breathed.

"Me too," Harry admitted.

"Did something happen with your relatives?" Neville asked Harry. "I've been writing you all summer, but you haven't written back."

"I've been writing, though," Harry protested. "Su said the same thing. She thinks someone's interfering with my mail."

They looked at Su. "I'll tell you about it later," she promised.

And with that, they were swept into the party.

* * *

For hours, Harry enjoyed food and friends and laughter. Su was showered with gifts (mostly books, of course) and found herself, as the birthday girl, being drawn aside by every partygoer for conversation and congratulations and hugs.

Harry joined Ron, Oliver, and the twins in a discussion about Quidditch. Harry still didn't follow any particular team in the league, which amazed everybody, and for the rest of the day he had Ron trying to sway him towards the Chudley Cannons, while Oliver attempted to convince him that Puddlemere United were the best team ever.

Harry was kind of leaning towards Puddlemere – they had at least won a match in the last century. Also: respect for his Captain.

Eventually, all the guests began to leave, trickling away from the Burrow in twos and threes, all stopping to shake Su's hand or give her a big hug.

Finally, Su, Harry, and Neville were able to spend some time together, alone, and they were sitting in the backyard as daylight faded. All the Weasleys were inside, eating Molly's massive dinner, but the trio had opted to grab their plates and run.

In the chaos of the Weasley household, they wouldn't be missed for a couple of hours. The three best friends took the opportunity to catch up on each other's summers.

Neville had spent most of his time working in his family's greenhouses, enjoying the quiet time with the plants and his thoughts. Su had learned how to take care of baby Jasmine, and was learning Occlumency from Beatrice and some of the other Department of Mysteries workers. Harry had been doing a lot of chores, and no homework.

"So who do you think is interfering with my mail?" Harry asked, finally.

Su glanced over her shoulder, in case any grownups were hovering near by, then she gestured for the two boys to huddle in closer. What she was about to share was secret.

"Dumbledore," she said. Neither boy was surprised.

"Listen, Harry, near the beginning of the summer, I wanted to get you away from your family as soon as possible. I asked Beatrice and Nathan, and they thought it was a great idea that I have someone my own age to spend time with, since Nathan's busy with the baby, and Beatrice is back at the Ministry. I don't know how Dumbledore found out about the plans, but he sent us a letter telling us that we couldn't remove you from the Dursleys for at least three weeks. Then a couple of days later, we got a letter from Mrs Weasley that said she'd be happy to host my birthday party and to let you stay here for the rest of summer. She seemed to think it was Nathan's idea… but I _know_ that it wasn't."

"This is pretty serious, Harry," Neville frowned. "I mean, first he's got control of your vault – I know that you've got your key now, but he was in charge of it before – then he sent you that invisibility cloak last year and left Dark-Lord-Bait lying around in a school full of children, and he practically dared you to go after Quirrell."

"Yeah, but Quirrell kidnapped us, instead, didn't he?" Harry pointed out.

"True," Neville acknowledged. "My point is; he's cryptic and suspicious. Su was right last year – if Vold– I mean, 'Darth Volder' – is back, we need to prepare ourselves, and we can't let Dumbledore trick us into facing Him before we're ready."

"My question is, why is he so insistent that Harry stay with the Dursleys?" Su put forward. "I mean, the Weasleys I can understand, because they adore Dumbledore, and they trust him a lot, but as far as I can tell, there's no advantage to keeping Harry in the Dursley house at all… they haven't been abusing you this summer, have they, Harry?"

He shook his head. "I never did get around to telling them that I can't do magic outside of school," he smirked. "They're all too afraid to lay a hand on me. But it wasn't exactly pleasant for me to stay there, either."

"I wish you had someone else you could live with," Neville sighed.

_Sirius Black_, Su thought, recalling the Prisoner of Azkaban. One problem: how to get him free, and prove him innocent. Scabbers the Rat – also known as Peter Pettigrew – was somewhere in the house behind them, but she didn't know how to convince the authorities of her story, or how to stop the rat from escaping, or even to explain how she knew everything that she did anyway.

"So, Occlumency," Harry interrupted Su's thoughts. "It stops people from reading your mind, right? Why do you need that?"

"It's sort of multi-purpose, actually," Su admitted. "Stops mind-reading, not that that's common; and can lessen the effects of mind-controlling potions and spells, like the Imperius curse, and love potions, and memory charms; it also helps keep your mind organized and clear-thinking."

"So why do you need it?" Harry pressed. Su sighed.

"I've told you a little bit about it, Harry, but I think I can explain a little more," she said. "Neville, the official story is that I'm an orphan, the unofficial story is that I'm the victim of a chronological-displacement, er, kind of like time travel. The _real_ story is that I… well, I came through the Veil in the Department of Mysteries."

Neville gaped. Harry blinked. Only one of them vaguely understood.

"You… but that's impossible," Neville breathed. "Wait, the Veil is in the Ministry?"

"Yeah, in the Death Chamber," Su nodded.

"I'd always thought it was a myth," Neville shivered.

"Still sort of is."

"Um, will someone please explain this to me?" Harry asked.

"Right," Su blushed. "Er, the Veil is kind of like… the passage to the Other Side. That means Death, Harry, in case I wasn't very clear. It means that I'm… I'm probably dead. Or I was, but now I'm not. We're not really sure. Anyway, the point is, because I'm part of a whole bunch of secret Department of Mysteries Experiments, I have to be able to protect my mind from people who would want to learn said secrets."

"Wicked," Harry grinned. "Can I learn, too?"

"I think so," Su nodded. "Aunt Bea is helping me, but the whole Department has been itching to look at you for eleven years, so I'm sure they'd be glad to help."

"Why?" Harry looked confused for a moment.

"Does the defeat of Darth Volder ring a bell?" Neville rolled his eyes.

"Oh," Harry grinned sheepishly. "Right. That."

"I've already learned how to organise my mind, mostly," Su admitted. "My mental shields aren't quite up to Aunt Bea's level, but I'm only twelve so… you know. I can work on that. I don't think it would take long for you guys to catch up, though."

She didn't mention _how_ she'd catalogued her memories. She'd basically shelved her knowledge into sections. Muggle Studies: Math, English, History, Science etc. Past Life: her mother, father, little brothers, and everything she remembered about living in the muggle world before somehow passing through the Veil. Wizarding World: everything she'd learned about magic and the wizarding world since coming to live with Beatrice and Nathan Li. First Year: contained the events of the past year, as well as what she remembered of the first Harry Potter Book. Second Year, Third Year, and Fourth Year, contained the other three books that she had read.

She never did get around to reading those other three books. It was too bad.

"We have the whole summer," Neville pointed out. "We could ask our parents for a tour of the ministry, or help out your Aunt in the Department of Mysteries…"

"I don't know what areas we're allowed in," Su admitted. "I mean, everything down there is top secret, but I think that if we behave ourselves, the Unspeakables would let us hang around. They all live for Uncle Nate's baking, anyway."

"Bribes," Harry grinned. "I like it."

His summer was looking better by the minute.

* * *

**A/N: **_I'm pretty sure that if a sickle were equal to a pound, Harry would be ridiculously rich. In Su's defence, she doesn't know the wizard-muggle conversion rate. I'm going to say that Harry's worth a little over half of what Su estimated... maybe 55-60% of what she guessed. I'm from Australia, so I'm not very familiar with the English money system, but I think that that's a little more fair for a reasonably wealthy boy's trust fund... I think. _

_If you have a better suggestion for Harry's net worth, or the wizard-muggle conversion rate, please let me know. _

_Also - tell me what you think of the story so far, and what you think might happen next :)_


	2. The Department of Mysteries

**Author's Note:**_ I'm so excited for this second chapter! I already have wonderfully positive reactions to this new fic, and I'm really grateful to everyone who's taken the time to read this, and especially to people who fav'd it, and very happy cookies to everyone who reviews. I love you guys.  
_

_On with the chapter, in which Harry exercises his inner-Slytherin, Neville makes numerous Star Wars references, and a house elf is offered tea - though not necessarily in that order. _

* * *

**~ The Department of Mysteries ~**

It had been a little awkward sleeping over at the Weasley house at first. For one, Harry wasn't particularly close to Ron Weasley, with whom he was to share a room. He liked Ron, sure, and sometimes they'd study together, or talk Quidditch together in the Gryffindor Common Room, but he was much closer to Neville.

Also, Ginny Weasley appeared to have a crush on him. Harry had no idea what to make of it. Every time she saw him she squealed and ran out of the room.

He'd catch her peeking at him from a window whenever he, Ron, and the twins would try to play a makeshift game of Quidditch, or when Cedric Diggory would come down to test his flying skills against Harry's.

At mealtimes, she'd stare at him unrelentingly, until he looked up and caught her eye, after which she'd blush red from her neck to the tips of her ears, look down, and start shovelling food into her mouth in a fair imitation of Ron.

Harry decided that he would never understand girls.

Su would come visit on occasion, but Harry found himself oddly jealous of the way she would hole up with Percy Weasley in order to discuss Ancient Runes and Arithmancy and other schoolwork. In these situations he found that the only way to recapture his best friend's attention was to ask for her help with his homework.

Only… homework was rather dull. So.

Thank Heavens for Neville, who was happy to spend hours just talking to Harry.

They'd wander down into the muggle part of the village with some of Harry's spending money, where Harry bought some muggle clothes that fit him, and then took Neville to the movies. He even managed to bribe one of the girls in charge of the cinema projectors to put on the Star Wars movies, and invited the whole Weasley clan to join Neville and him – as well as Cedric Diggory, Oliver Wood, Su's friend David Yao, and, of course, Su and the Li's. Beatrice was taking care of baby Jasmine, but Nathan was delighted by the opportunity to see more muggle movies.

Everyone came out of the cinema several hours later having thoroughly enjoyed themselves; although Mrs Weasley worried that the twins might try to learn how to make their own lightsabers. Harry just had fun practicing wandless magic and calling it 'the force'.

"You know, Harry," Neville said one day, as they were skipping stones over the lake. "You're kind of like Luke Skywalker."

"Oh?"

"You know, your father led a life you never knew about, you have an eccentric old mentor, there's a Dark Sith Lord out to kill you, you've got some kind of destiny…"

"So… Voldemort – I mean, Darth Volder – is my father?" Harry laughed.

Neville blushed, but grinned. "I dunno. Maybe. Just – you know. Similar."

"I'm telling Su," Harry smiled. "I'm sure she'll be thrilled to work in more Star Wars references into our lives. _I have taught you well, young Padawan!"_

They burst out laughing, unable to breathe, both of them falling to the ground in their hysterics. It took several minutes for them to calm down.

Neville ruined it. "_No, Harry. SNAPE is your father!_"

"Noooo!" Harry cried, and they were both dissolving into hysterics once more.

* * *

Su laughed until she cried when she heard the boys' Star Wars quoting, and they all set about debating whether they could pull of their Jedi Mind Tricks with a little wandless _confundus_ charm… though first they needed to perfect silent casting. The three of them agreed to practice silent casting with all their spells in the upcoming school year, and then practice Jedi Mind Tricks on suggestible prefects, like Percy Weasley.

"Do you think," Neville leaned in conspiratorially, "that if we were to go to the ministry, to, uh, learn Defence techniques – you know, as close friends of the danger-magnet Boy-Who-Lived – we could practice magic in the Department of Mysteries?"

Su blinked. "What?"

"Well," Harry glanced at Neville – the two of them had been talking about it, when Su was off chatting about academia with Percy, whether they might learn some little-known tricks off the Unspeakables. Those who worked in the Department of Mysteries were famously, well, _mysterious_. "It would be cool to learn a few neat tricks. Maybe your Aunt can teach us how to cast silently?"

"I can ask her I suppose," Su nodded, thoughtful. "We did promise we'd never be anyone's victims again after bloody Quirrell. Proper defensive techniques would help with that."

"Excellent," the boys grinned.

"Are you two planning anything in particular for your birthday?" Su asked.

Harry and Neville blinked, looking at each other.

"Oh," Neville was first to recover. "Right. We have the same birthday."

"We _do_?" Harry gaped. "Really?"

Neville nodded. "I remember because Gran told me – said that was the reason our parents were in hiding when You-Know-Who was attacked, because you and I were just kids, and Dumbledore didn't want him getting at us."

"That doesn't make any sense," Harry frowned. "Loads of people have kids and were in the war. Why were our families more special than other families?"

"Maybe it has something to do with July babies," Su suggested. "Like, babies born around the time of the solstice are more powerful, or something? Maybe that's why Darth Volder went after you – because he thought you might grow up to be a threat?"

"But Su," Neville protested. "There are lots of kids born in July – I mean, not so much in our year, but you know, a lot. Why didn't Voldemort go after them, the older ones, even, who could fight back at that time?"

Su sighed. "I don't know. Who tries to kill a baby at all? Did he need you for some kind of ritual? Is there some inherited Potter magic like Parseltongue that Darth Volder was trying to get from you? Is there some stupid, vague prophecy that makes out like you're the 'Chosen One'? I hate those stories, you know, the endings are always so obvious – Hero has crappy life, Hero defeats Bad Guy, Hero marries Redheaded Heroine and has lots of pretty, happy babies…"

"Why redheaded?" Harry asked. He shuddered when the only redhead that came to mind was Ginny Weasley. Her weird crush was making him _really_ uncomfortable, especially since the twins insisted on teasing both of them about it.

Su shrugged. "Fantasy stories are obsessed with redheads – because redheads aren't common, so they're 'special', or something. Also – those cheesy descriptions;" she clasped her hands together and fluttered her eyelashes dramatically, "_her hair was the colour of flames and sunset, settling around her shoulders like burning silk. Her eyes shone like stars, and he caught his breath, entranced by her radiant beauty…_ after reading stuff like that all the time, I got really sick of fairytales."

"I can imagine," Harry winced.

"What were we talking about, again?" Neville asked, laughing at Harry's face.

"Um… birthdays, I think," Harry supplied. "Ours. Should we do something?"

"Sure," Neville grinned. "We have all the same friends anyway, so we can invite them over to my place – Gran will love it. We'll have lunch and cake, and probably play some games…"

"Sounds like fun," Su grinned.

"So do you think you could teach us Occlumency?" Harry asked. "I mean, I'm not paranoid – not really – but I don't like the idea of someone just, you know, randomly reading my mind. That's very poor manners, don't you think?"

"And if it helps with memory, it might help me in school," Neville added.

"Well, I suppose I can teach you the basics," Su told them, "but I can't really teach you the harder stuff. I'm still learning myself, and I'm not very good at it yet."

"Maybe you could ask your Aunt about that, too?"

"Sure, Harry."

There was a pause.

"What's Parseltongue?" Harry asked.

"Oh, that's the ability to talk to snakes," Neville explained. "A lot of Dark Wizards could do it – like Salazar Slytherin, and Herpo the Foul, and – you know – Darth Volder."

"I can do that," Harry said, shocking Neville, but not Su, for some reason.

"Really?" Neville breathed.

"Yup," Harry nodded, and he quickly told them the story of going to the zoo on Dudley's birthday and accidentally talking to – and freeing – the snake there.

"Blimey, Harry," Neville blinked. "Where'd you get Parseltongue from? I mean, it's a hereditary ability, and the only known lines to hold it are in Greece and China, and the Slytherins, of course. Only, everyone figures Darth Volder must be the heir of Slytherin because he can speak to snakes…"

"So Voldemort really _is_ my father?" Harry asked, aghast.

"I don't think so," Neville shook his head, "but maybe you're related? A lot of the old pureblood families are, its…" he blushed. "Well, you know."

Harry didn't know, so Su explained.

"They marry their cousins, Harry," she told him. "To keep their lines 'pure'. I don't think there's any sibling marriages, at least, there haven't been for a couple of centuries that I know of, but it's pretty icky."

"There's a whole Department of Lineage in the Ministry so that people know who they can marry without endangering their lines," Neville explained. "Only, not everyone consults them because the Department of Lineage is a bit of a joke, and its mostly filled with useless purebloods who couldn't get a job doing something useful and can only recite their whole family history."

"That's kind of gross," Harry pulled a face. "I mean, I guess it wouldn't be so bad in a really, really big wizard community with lots and lots of families, but Hagrid told me that wizarding Britain has less than a million people. That's not a lot of people for a whole country. That's not even a lot of people for a city."

"That's not even counting the fact that about half of the population is discounted from the pureblood marriage equation because they're half-bloods or muggle-born," Su pointed out. "I mean, even for a 'Light' family, Harry, when your dad – a pureblood – married your mum – a muggle-born – there was a big scandal."

"How do you know?"

"I'll lend you the book later," she promised. "It's one of those ones that talk about your whole life – or really, the history of your family until the night you accidentally blew up Darth Volder. Everything after that is pure speculation. People have been searching for you ever since, until you turned up at Hogwarts."

"I wish they'd found me," Harry sighed. "I wish they'd rescue me."

"We're trying, Harry," Neville promised. "Hopefully next summer, you won't have to go back at all."

"Not if I have anything to say about it," Su agreed, thinking of Sirius Black languishing in Azkaban prison, and how happy he would be to reunite with his godson. It was frustrating her that she couldn't get anywhere near the damn rat. He was almost always with Ron, in his pocket or on his bed, and whenever she might have a change to get the stupid thing, she'd be taken back home, having run out of time.

Not to mention Harry's constant presence. He'd certainly question why she was summoning and stealing Ron's pet rat, and she doubted that she'd be able to explain it in a way that he'd believe her. Even if wizards lived in an impossible world of magic, they remained surprisingly sceptical.

Su had read _the Quibbler_, and though they embellished their stories a little, the general messages – corrupt politicians, sightings of new magical creatures, and progressions made in potion making and healing – all seemed plausible.

It was better than the _Daily Prophet_ at any rate. But guess which paper wizards tended to prefer and to read, even when they were the subjects of articles that were 80% false?

Wizards made no sense to her.

"Let's go inside and see if Mrs Weasley has any spare pudding," she suggested. Hopefully the boys – and the Weasleys – would be distracted by the sweets, and she'd be able to sneak out back and summon that blasted rat!

* * *

"Welcome to the Department of Mysteries!" Beatrice ushered the boys into the Door Room, and waited while the doors shuffled themselves into a presentable order (magical buildings were oddly vain that way, though Su could see no discernable difference in the doors) and then the trio followed Beatrice into the Offices.

Almost everyone in the Department had put aside all projects that did not need constant and focused supervision, which left three or four disgruntled Unspeakables to get all the gossip second hand.

"Su! You're back!" Sherlock Pearl grabbed up the girl in a hug and swung her around. "Can we try that thing with the time-turners now? Beatrice promised I could ask you this summer, since you're not at school now. Please?"

"Let her breathe!" Beatrice laughed, as Alfred Yao materialised beside her, seemingly out of thin air. The boys gaped at him.

"Can you teach us to do that?" Harry asked.

"Can we study your scar?" Alfred returned. Harry blinked.

"My scar? Why?"

"It's the curse scar of the only known survivor of an unstoppable killing curse," Pearl explained excitedly. "It's a mystery! Everyone in this Department has been looking forward to today ever since Su told us you wanted to come!"

"Haven't we had this conversation before?" Neville looked at Harry. "Remember we told you that you defeated a Sith Lord as an infant?"

"Sith?" Pearl and Yao looked confused.

"Sith, Dark, same thing," Neville shrugged. Harry and Su snickered. And Neville accused _Su_ of working Star Wars references into everything.

"Right," Pearl said slowly, "well, how about it?"

Harry looked at him, sizing him up, and then drew Neville and Su aside so that they might talk in private. Su carefully put up a light privacy ward, to warn the grownups away from eavesdropping. Pearl and Madam Locke had the grace to look embarrassed.

"We should make a trade," Harry said, immediately. "I mean; if they get to study _us_, we should get to study _them_, or at least learn some tricks from them. If we just ask, they'll look at us like little kids, and then only teach us the small stuff. If we offer them a trade, even if we don't understand what we're learning, it's still knowledge that we can use later on. Agreed?"

The other two nodded, and Harry continued.

"Right, so, now we have to decide what we're worth, as people who should be dead and who aren't – well, you and I, anyway, Su – Neville, we'd never leave you out. If they won't include you in the trade, we can teach you anything we learn, okay?"

"Okay."

"Right, so Su, what do you know that they know that we don't know that they can teach us? Any stealth skills, Occlumency, warding… runes even."

"Well… I know that there's an investigation into portals – kind of like the barrier at Platform Nine and Three Quarters. It would be much more comfortable and convenient than portkeys or apparition… even if we can't make a full portal, we can still deliver things to each other – like mail – without interference. They have the most advanced wards in the country, excepting Gringotts, and only Unspeakables with a special key can disable them. They all know Occlumency, some know Legilimency – which is mind reading – and a couple have worked as curse breakers and as Aurors during the last war. We can learn loads from them, even some creative methods of application for Ancient Runes and Arithmency!"

"You're really excited by this aren't you?" Harry smirked, but his shining eyes betrayed his own enthusiasm.

Neville grinned, and slapped Harry upside the head, which startled a laugh out of Su and puzzled looks from the grownups (who had very respectfully not breached the privacy ward even though they easily could have. They thought these kids were adorable).

"Okay," Harry turned around, as Su dropped the ward. "We're offering you a trade."

"A trade?" The Department Head – Madam Locke – raised her eyebrows so high they almost flew off her head.

Harry nodded. "A trade. Su and I are valuable subjects of study; Neville might be, too, if Su's theory is correct. So, we have agreed to allow you to examine us, if in return we may study with you topics that are of interest to us. These topics may include wards, runes, Occlumency, portal making and anything else we might think of. Agreed?"

The Unspeakables blinked, absolutely stunned.

Harry was pretty proud of his negotiating. It came up – though rarely – at the Dursleys that Harry would have to barter manual labour in exchange for being fed, or to go to the park on his own, or to earn a cookie from Dudley's choc-chip jar (only one!). His negotiating skills had improved after a couple of weeks watching the Weasley twins wheel and deal with their mother, their father, their brothers, their sister, and even Harry himself. It had been quite educational.

One of the ladies who worked with the time-turners was the first to react.

"He's _adorable!_" she squealed. "Can we keep him?"

That opened the floodgates. Everyone was talking at once. Most of them were laughing at being invited to trade with a child, especially since that child was the famous boy-who-lived, reportedly Gryffindor but surprisingly Slytherin in person. Almost all of the women were cooing over how adorable he was – it didn't help that underfed and scrawny Harry was still a little short for his age, though Mrs Weasley assured him that if he were to eat healthily he'd shoot up in no time.

Harry cleared his throat to get their attention, quite miffed at being treated like a baby. Su and Neville shared his unimpressed expression. Harry figured it was just his luck to be treated like a child when he didn't want to be, while he had been treated as a house-elf (by the Dursleys) or a faux-solution for Dark Lords (by the wizarding world) or as an almost-adult opponent (by Quirrell-Voldemort) at times when he should have been allowed to live as a normal child.

"Well?" He asked Madam Locke, ignoring the other adults discussing whether Harry would be a Ravenclaw or a Slytherin if he were to be re-sorted right at that moment. Su rolled her eyes and mouthed '_Slytherin, obviously, he looks better in green.'_ Neville had a hard time smothering his sniggering.

Madam Locke grinned. "Agreed."

"What was your theory, Su?" Pearl asked, casually cutting her palm open with his wand and catching the blood in a jar before sealing the wound.

_Wizards are the weirdest creatures on the planet, I swear_, Su thought, eyeing her bloody, but healthy, hand as she answered.

"Well, the three of us were discussing why Darth Volder might have attacked Harry on Halloween in Eighty-One, and Neville brought up that he'd been squirrelled away at the same time, and so we thought that Dumbledore – because he's nosy and plays favourites like that – asked his friends to go hide somewhere with their kids so they'd be safe, but the Weasleys never did that, so that theory was out… and it started because Harry and Neville share a birthday, so then I suggested that maybe babies born around the solstice are more powerful, naturally, than others… just a theory."

After the adults in the room puzzled out who Darth Volder was and managed to follow Su's convoluted and slightly anti-Dumbledore (they'd have to look into that) explanation, some of them brightened.

"We've noticed patterns of some wizards being more powerful than others," one woman, who was studying magical cores, latched onto Neville. "We thought it had to do with genes, or maybe the zodiac, or the stars… but the solstices are certainly another variable that we've never thought to consider."

"Okay, here's what's going to happen," Madam Locke declared, capturing everyone's attention – well, she _was_ their boss, after all. "The children will go down with Juliana," she pointed to the witch beside Neville, "and get their magical cores measured. Mr Longbottom can show Juliana and her team some of the spells that he's learnt last year, while Miss Li will continue with last summer's experiments with Pearl and Yao. Mr Potter, you shall come with me. Tomorrow, we shall endeavour to teach you some tricks of our trade."

"That's so _unfair_," whined Pearl, looking longingly at Harry. "How come _you_ get to look at Harry first?"

"Because I'm your boss, Sherlock," Locke retorted, grinning. "We don't want to overwhelm the boy, do we, Mr Potter?" She winked at Harry, who grinned back. He'd gotten what he wanted, after all.

"So long as you tell me what we're doing and I'm okay with it," he said.

"You are remarkably intelligent Mr Potter, I like you," Locke returned. "Alright then, the show's over ladies and gentlemen, back to your work stations. I'm sure all of you will have a chance to speak with Mr Potter before the summer ends. Children, you trot off with Juliana, and I'll speak with Nathan and Beatrice."

Happily, the three of them skipped after Juliana, gaping at the things that they passed in the Department of Mysteries. Jars full of brains, a room full of clocks… this place was so strange and dizzying it almost outdid Hogwarts! Su had seen most of it before, but she still found it fascinating, and she liked to share her small amount of knowledge with her friends, pointing out a few gadgets and explaining their purposes and functions.

Juliana ushered them excitedly into her room, which was filled with all sorts of wands and staffs of different woods and shapes and sizes, not to mention another half-dozen cubicle offices, practically bursting with pens and paper – muggle inventions that Su had introduced the Department to, much to their gratitude. Paper was amazingly cheaper than parchment, and so much easier to manage, all flat instead of having to be rolled up into scrolls!

"I'm going to tell them about typewriters, next," Su whispered to Harry, who was grinning at the sight.

"Alright, kids," Juliana lined them up. "Just stand still for a moment, the spell is pretty easy, but if you fidget, we might mix up whose power goes where."

The three stood still, and Juliana and two of her colleagues waved their wands over them, casting a complicated core-examination spell. Out of each child stepped a hazy Harry-shaped, or Su-shaped, or Neville-shaped body made of shimmering light. Harry and Neville glowed a bright gold, while Su's shone softer silver.

"Do the colours change depending on gender?" Su asked, having never been subjected to this particular core-examination test.

"No," Juliana frowned. "No, _everyone_ is supposed to be gold. I don't know why yours is silver… Johnson, Lang, could you measure the photons? I have to go ask Madam Locke a question."

"Is it because I came through the Veil?" Su asked. "Because I'm supposed to be dead?"

Juliana rushed over and put her hands on Su's shoulders. "You're not supposed to be dead. If you were, the Veil wouldn't have given you up. You belong to the world of the living, Su Li, and you will for a long time if we have anything to say about it."

Su wasn't sure if 'we' meant the Department of Mysteries, her friends, Beatrice and Nathan, or just Juliana and her team, but it made her feel a little better nonetheless.

"I think that it's kind of cool," Lang said after Juliana had gone. "Looks kind of like a _patronus_."

"What's a _patronus_?" Harry asked.

That led to a discussion about the _patronus _charm, how happy your thoughts had to be, pros and cons of shield-form vs corporeal-form, its uselessness as a covert messenger, what dementors were, and what Azkaban prison was.

Harry was very pensive as he took in all of this new information.

"So dementors take away everything happy in your life, leaving you miserable, depressed, and suicidal, or they Kiss you and leave you lobotomised?"

"What do you know about lobotomy, Harry?" Su asked.

"Something Uncle Vernon said once," he shrugged, and she regretted asking.

"Well, I'm not sure what lobotomy is," Johnson admitted. "But dementors are horrible. They're the embodiment of everything negative and miserable and lonely."

"I wouldn't wish that on anyone," Harry said, trying to imagine a life without his happy memories, of only knowing a cupboard under the stairs and the gnawing pain of days-old hunger, with only the cold and spiders for company. "No one deserves that. It's not humane. That's… that's just evil."

"It's convenient," Johnson sighed. "We don't know how to get rid of them – dementors, I mean – and other countries scorn us for it, but we just don't know what else to do. There aren't many dementors outside of Britain. There are rogue ones that go around wandering, you can tell they're around when the suicide rates go up, because the poor muggles can't see them, but the only colony of them in the world… that we know of… is here. The French can call us barbarians all they want, but I don't see _them_ offering us a solution – I'm pretty sure they try and send any captured dementors they find over the Channel so that it can be _our_ problem instead."

Lang regarded Johnson with some awe. "I see you feel quite strongly about this."

"I just hate that they're judging us for something that we can hardly help. What are we supposed to do with the damned things? Release them on the muggles? Please, at least the criminals in Azkaban deserve to be miserable, at least, for a time."

"Could we learn how to cast a _patronus_?" Neville asked nervously, planning to avoid dementors at all costs for the rest of his life.

"Well… we could try to teach you the basics, but its some pretty advanced powerful magic, and it takes a lot of focus. You should learn Occlumency first, and then move on to the _patronus_ and similar magics."

"We'll get it next summer, if we have to," Su thought. _Just in case I can't get Sirius out before he escapes – but hopefully it won't come to that. Please God; don't let it come to that._ She wasn't keen on ever facing a dementor either.

Johnson and Lang finished measuring the photons, and explained to the three how the brightness of a witch or wizard's core manifestation represented their magical power. Both Harry and Neville were extremely powerful for their age, though they lacked control and finesse, which shocked Neville, who had never thought himself a particularly capable wizard, even with his friend's encouragements.

Su was also reasonably powerful, quite above par, but nowhere near Harry or Neville's level. What she lacked in force, she made up for, a little, in skill.

"See how the outlines of Neville's manifestation are the fuzziest?" Lang asked, pointing at the hazy Neville-shaped body of light. "It means that he hasn't got as tight a hold on his power as Su, whose outline is the sharpest. A fully trained wizard's manifestation is almost identical to the wizard himself… well, aside from being gold and shiny."

"Can you tell what types of magic people are good at?" Harry asked.

"That's a different diagnostic spell," Johnson told him. "This one shows us power and control. There are others that show us magical potentials and leanings, and that can show whether a wizard has used a lot of Dark magic in his life, or been exposed to a lot of Dark magic in his environment. Werewolves react to those spells a little oddly, and half-humans have some different colours thrown into their mix because the way that their magic works is different."

"Fascinating," Su breathed.

"I know, it's why I joined this division," Johnson grinned. "I'm a half-blood, you see, and my mum's family buys into all the pureblood stuff, but my dad is a muggle-born, and he's a decently capable wizard, so I wanted to find out if blood purity affected magical ability. We're also trying to find out where muggle-borns come from, and how magic 'chooses' them, so to speak."

"Where's Juliana?" Neville asked. "She's been gone for a while."

"I'm here," Juliana opened the door, Madam Locke in tow. "Su's manifestation was interesting, but we've had half a dozen crises all around the Department – experiments left unattended when we were all fussing over Mr Potter. Oh, it's not your fault, Harry. Don't worry about it. We're the adults, we're supposed to know better."

"We're here now, however," Madam Locke stepped forward. "Lets see this manifestation, shall we?"

Lang obligingly recast the spell, and the fading manifestations brightened again, Harry and Neville's were the proper gold, but Su's was the silver of moonlight.

"It's a little fuzzy," Madam Locke inspected the manifestation, while Su blushed. Harry and Neville blushed more, though they hid it. After all, their manifestations were even hazier than Su's.

"Mysterious, quite mysterious," Locke hummed happily. "I'm almost eager to trade my time with Mr Potter for this… but this is the Department of Mysteries! This is right up our alley! Johnson, quick, catch my memory of this, we'll need to examine it later."

"What are you doing?" Harry frowned.

"I'm capturing a memory, for later inspection in a pensieve," Madam Locke explained. "I can show you one later, but for now, we have other mysteries to solve!"

"This is the best day _ever_," Juliana grinned, examining the manifestations. "So many mysteries! So many questions! Oooh, Ulrich is going to be _so jealous_ when he hears what we've done today. Serves him right for getting into a bar brawl."

"All right Su, now it's my turn," Pearl whisked through the room, grabbing Su on the way, and they skipped along to the time room to play with the time turners. Madam Locke shook her head and sighed. That man was never going to grow up.

"Come along, Mr Potter," she gestured for Harry to follow her out of the room. "Let's get a good look at you. I think some of our healers would like to get a look of that scar of yours. I promise to keep them in check, they do tend to get a little… enthusiastic." She grimaced as she recalled the last experiment that she failed to supervise. The poor wizard hadn't been able to sit down for a month, and she'd sent the whole team into the muggle world to get tutored in the proper way to perform a prostate exam without injuring the patient in the process.

Harry obediently followed.

For the rest of the day, he was fussed over by healers that didn't look much at all like strict and severe Madam Pomfrey. These healers were flighty and frivolous and had to be continuously dissuaded from trying to _cut the skin off Harry's forehead so that they could get a closer look at his scar_.

He was _very_ glad that Madam Locke was around to keep them in check. They frightened him almost as much as Quirrell last year. Okay, maybe not Quirrell. But they were right up there, just below Fluffy, but above Snape.

When Neville and Su joined him in the foyer of the Ministry of Magic, Su declared that her experiments with the time-turner had been successful, though she wasn't allowed to divulge the nature of said experiments with civilians, and Neville told them that he'd performed the charms and transfigurations from first year much better than he had before, after getting some pointers on focusing his mind and magic from Juliana.

"I can't wait for tomorrow," Harry grinned. "If we keep this up every summer, Darth Volder won't know what hit him! It'll be like we stole his own Death Star from right under his nose!"

"Or lack of it," Su shuddered, thinking of that creepy nose-less face on the back of Quirrell's head. "I'll be happy if we never have to see him again."

"I wonder if we can banish him to a galaxy far, far away," Neville mused, and they all giggled.

"Come on, kids," Nathan ushered them towards the public floos. "Why don't we continue this conversation at home? I've made Su's favourite stir fried vegetables and honey soy chicken… and there's treacle tart for dessert!"

"Yes!"

They all dived into the floo, for a very satisfying end to a long and fascinating day.

* * *

A few days later, Harry was the happiest he'd ever been. He had no homework, no class schedule, and no Dursleys to bother him. He had all the time in the world to plan pranks with the twins, hang out with Neville and Su, and, especially, learning new and fascinating things at the Department of Mysteries.

He had learned that there was some Dark Magic residue in his scar – which was pretty obvious, when he thought about it, because it was a _curse scar_. He had also told them about his scar hurting when he looked at Quirrell – who had had Voldemort in the back of his head – and when Quirrell had been excitedly heading for the Stone as well. This had forced him to tell the whole story of first year, which, surprisingly, none of them knew, even Beatrice learnt new, deadly, details.

Harry expected Su would get a very flustered lecture about hiding deadly adventures from her surrogate parents. And then a hug. Lots of hugs. When he told her this, she had smiled and laughed and promised to hug him too.

Harry just blushed – that wasn't what he meant.

He and Neville had begun learning the basics of Occlumency as well, and together with Su, they began discussing how best to approach casting a _patronus_. They were getting lessons on basic runes, and Su was asking a lot of questions about their applications in healing… Harry mostly stayed out of the way for those latter conversations. Those experimental healers were _creepy_.

Before he knew it, it was his and Neville's birthday. It had been a pretty quiet affair, because he was going to celebrate with the Weasleys at dinner, but had spent the day at Longbottom Manor with Neville and Su and Neville's Gran and Uncle Algie, and Su's Aunt Beatrice and Uncle Nathan and baby Jasmine.

There had been lots of hugs, and some decent presents – more books, to be expected, from Su and her family, this time on more advanced potions and defensive spells, as well as a field-healing book that had been written during the war with Grindelwald.

Neville and his Gran had bought him a practice snitch, that couldn't fly more than three feet away from him, so that he could practice on the ground. He released it and laughed when it hovered near his shoulder. He decided to call it Leon, and that it would be a sort of pet.

It didn't make any noise, and when Su used a marker to draw a little smiley face on it, it was actually quite cute. He wondered if there was a spell that could animate the face.

He had gotten back to the Burrow just in time for a large, Mrs-Weasley-Style Dinner, and was welcomed with warm hugs and lots of presents. He got another jumper and more fudge from Mrs Weasley. He received a rubber duck from Mr Weasley (though he had no idea why). Percy had gotten him a book on study techniques, which he promised to use, but he didn't think he'd touch it until fifth year, and there were some suspicious lollies from the twins that he decided he would mail anonymously to Dudley. Ron had gotten him a book on the Chudley Cannons, because he hadn't given up on trying to teach Harry 'the proper way to enjoy Quidditch'. Ginny had given him a flower. He just didn't understand that girl.

Many hours later, Harry happily stumbled up the stairs to the room he shared with Ron, in a warm daze from the comfortable feelings of being loved and surrounded by happiness and laughter. This had been the best birthday of his life.

He was so dizzily happy that, when he spotted the house elf on his bed, he wondered if Fred and George had managed to slip something into his food after all.

"Er, hello?" He said, when he realised with a couple of blinks that the elf really was there. "Can I help you with something?"

"Harry Potter!" gasped the elf. "Asking to help Dobby! Harry Potter is a Great Wizard! A kind wizard! Dobby has not met many kind wizards… Dobby mustn't say such things. Bad Dobby! Bad Dobby!" The elf started hitting itself with an old beater bat it found on the floor of the room.

"Please stop hitting yourself," Harry pleaded, bemused. He had experience with the house elves' strange way of talking and sometimes punishing themselves, but this one was a little hysterical, even for a high-strung house elf.

"Harry Potter said PLEASE?!" The elf burst into happy sobs, murmuring about Harry's greatness and goodness and all those other wonderful adjectives…

"Just, calm down," Harry interrupted. "Why are you here?"

That did the trick. Dobby's posture changed from desperate to contrite with in moments, looking guiltily down at the ground.

"Dobby has come to warn Harry Potter," the elf said. "Harry Potter must not go back to Hogwarts. It is not safe for Harry Potter at Hogwarts."

Harry blinked. "What?"

"Harry Potter must not return to Hogwarts," Dobby repeated. "He must stay where he is safe. He is too great, too good to lose. If Harry Potter goes back to Hogwarts, he will be in mortal danger."

"Why?" Harry asked, surprised. The elf glanced over his shoulder, as though fearing someone might be listening.

"There is a plot, Harry Potter," he whispered. "A plot to make most terrible things to happen at Hogwarts this year. Dobby has known it for months, sir. Harry Potter must not put himself in peril, he is too important!"

"Harry, dear, are you _sure_ you don't want some treacle tart?" Mrs Weasley burst through the door, pausing when she noticed the house elf. "Oh, hello. I didn't know that you had company."

"Dobby was telling me that I shouldn't go back to Hogwarts," Harry explained. "There's something dangerous going on. Somebody's plotting to make trouble."

Mrs Weasley narrowed her eyes. "Well, dear," she bustled over to Dobby and ushered him out of the room. "Why don't you join us for tea, and you can tell us all about these plots and dangers and troubles, hmmm?"

"Tea?" Dobby squeaked. Mrs Weasley grinned.

"Yes, yes, dear, come along, and you can tell us all about why Harry shouldn't come back to school." They trooped down the stairs, passing Ron on his way up to his room.

"Where'd you get a house elf, mum?" He asked.

"He's just visiting Ronald, don't you worry," Mrs Weasley smiled, and Ron shrugged and gave it no more thought – though he did grin when he noticed that Harry was wearing his Chudley Cannon socks, thinking he'd made some headway with the Boy-Who-Lived. "Come along, Harry, Dobby."

The kitchen was empty, aside from Mr Weasley. All other Weasley children had finished their desserts and gone up to bed.

"Hullo," Mr Weasley peered at Dobby. "Who's this?"

"Dobby," Mrs Weasley guided the elf to the dining table and sat him down, then busied herself making tea for everyone, except Harry, who needed to go to bed and so was given milk. "He says that Harry shouldn't go back to Hogwarts this year. Apparently somebody is plotting something dangerous."

She set the teapot down and poured a cup for herself, Mr Weasley, and Dobby.

Dobby stared at the teacup before him, his eyes – which were as large as tennis balls to begin with – widening impossibly.

"Mistress is a great lady," he murmured. "The most kindest, loveliest lady Dobby has ever met… Dobby's mistress is not as kind as Harry Potter's mistress… Bad Dobby! Bad Dobby!"

Everyone jumped when Dobby started slamming his head against the table.

Mrs Weasley put a stop to it, however.

"No, young lad," she scolded, pulling Dobby away from the table and sitting him firmly back in his seat. "There'll be none of that. You act sensibly now. There's a good lad. Drink your tea and tell us what's going on."

"There's a plot, Mistress," Dobby said. "A plot to make bad things happen at Hogwarts. Harry Potter is too important. He must not go to Hogwarts!"

"Well, Albus Dumbledore is at Hogwarts, I'm sure he'll do his best to keep his students safe. He's the finest Headmaster Hogwarts has ever had!" Mr Weasley declared brightly.

Harry recalled the Dark Lord trap from a few weeks ago. Su had been able to get past the door with nothing more than a simple _alohomora_. He hoped Mr Weasley wouldn't hold it against him that he doubted her claims about being 'safe'.

Dobby was shaking his head, sharing Harry's opinion.

"It is not _safe_," the elf repeated. "Not safe for Harry Potter. Dumbly-Door couldn't stop it last time. He can not stop it this time!"

"What, though?" Harry asked. "What's going on?"

Dobby shook his head. "Cannot tell."

"Dobby, I'm safer at Hogwarts than anywhere else. If I promise to be extra careful, will you stop telling me not to go there? Almost all of the professors fought Darth Volder in the last war, I'm sure that they'll keep me safe." _Not really, but if it gets this elf off my back…_

"It's not safe!" Dobby shrieked, hysterical.

"Drink your tea, dear," Mrs Weasley reminded the elf, who obediently sipped from the cup and looked wide-eyed at the plump redheaded woman. Harry wasn't sure if the elf worshipped the woman or feared her.

"I'm getting training from the Unspeakables," Harry said – this caused the elf to look up in surprise. "I'm learning a lot of interesting tricks. I'll be fine. I promise. You don't have to worry about me so… please don't try and stop me from going to Hogwarts."

The elf wrung his hands together anxiously.

"Harry Potter is sure?"

"You can ask the Hogwarts Elves if you want to check up on me," Harry offered. "They're always about, making meals and beds and stuff. I'm sure _they_ won't let anything happen to me if I tell them to keep an eye out."

Dobby nodded slowly. "Yes, this is a good idea… Harry Potter is very clever, sir. Harry Potter is a Great Wizard, sir. Dobby will check on Harry Potter, sir. Dobby will protect Harry Potter!"

Well… as long as he could go to Hogwarts. Harry shrugged and drank his milk.

"What is this plot? What's going to happen?" Mr Weasley asked.

Dobby shook his head. "Dobby cannot say. Dobby is bound. Dobby must be silent!"

"Well who's plotting, then?" Harry asked. "It's not… it's not Darth– I mean– it's not You-Know-Who, is it?"

"Not He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, sir…" Dobby said, eyes wide. He seemed to be trying to give Harry a hint. Harry, however, was completely lost.

"Does he work for You-Know-Who?"

"He did! He did!" Dobby nodded.

"A Death Eater," Mr Weasley muttered. "A Death Eater with a house elf… that narrows it down a bit. A Death Eater with a house elf named Dobby."

"We'll look into this, Dobby," Mrs Weasley promised. "We'll find out what's going on and bring it straight to Dumbledore. We swear it. We'll keep Harry safe."

Reluctantly, Dobby nodded. "Harry Potter is going to Hogwarts. Harry Potter is stubborn. Harry Potter is a Great Wizard…" the elf sighed. "Here is Harry Potter's mail."

He pulled a small pile of letters out of the pillowcase he'd been wearing, and threw them onto the table, before disappearing with a small pop.

Harry blinked.

"_Dumbledore_ is planning to attack Hogwarts?"

* * *

**A/N:** _I was watching some Star Wars clips the other day and was feeling nostalgic. Can you tell? _

_Su's rant about heroes and redheads in no way reflects my opinion of the Harry Potter series, which I really like, though I have to admit that the Harry/Ginny pairing baffles me because I never saw it coming. I have, however, read a great many formulaic fantasy novels that follow the pattern of hero has crappy life, hero defeats bad guy, hero marries redhead love interest and lives happily ever after. It gets really, really dull after a while. _

_Anyway, I was laughing so hard when I wrote this. If you found it hilarious too, please review and let me know!_


	3. Diagon Alley

**Author's Note:** _Getting back to the action! Gilderoy Lockhart! Evil Diary!Voldemort! Riots! Brawls! Incredibly rude photographers! A beleaguered doorman! HAGRID! Welcome back to the story, folks, I hope you like it!_

_Enjoy, and feel free to leave a review to tell me what you think!_

* * *

**~ Diagon Alley ~**

Harry gaped at the pile of letters on the table. It made sense to him, it really did, but he didn't know _why_ Dumbledore would do such a thing. Obviously Dumbledore had been interfering with his mail since he was a child, and now he had sent a house elf to return… some of it?

He had no idea what was going on, but if Dobby worked for Dumbledore, then that would mean that the plots he had overheard were likely Dumbledore's as well, and that was why he hadn't been placated by Mr Weasley's assurances that Dumbledore would keep Harry safe.

_But why?_

"Why on _earth_ do you think that _Dumbledore _is planning to attack Hogwarts?" Mrs Weasley shrieked in shock. "Young man, you don't know what you're saying! These accusations would break Albus's heart! I know that its quite shocking to hear that Hogwarts may be in danger this year, but I assure you, Albus Dumbledore holds the safety of his students above _everything_. I've fought alongside him in the last war, and he fought against Grindelwald before that, and _all_ that he wants is a world where people can live safely and happily. Harry Potter, Albus Dumbledore is a _good man_."

Mrs Weasley looked at him very intently, and Harry saw in the firm lines of her face that she believed every word that she said. He supposed that it _was_ unlikely that Dumbledore would attack the school… he had an image to uphold, after all.

"Well, if it's not Dumbledore, then who?"

"Oh, any number of people," Mrs Weasley waved a dismissive hand. "There are plenty of bad sorts who escaped Azkaban when the war ended – everything was a mess! Don't you worry about it, Harry, Dumbledore will take care of it, you'll see."

_Like he took care of the Philosopher's Stone?_ Harry thought cynically. _Like he took care of Quirrell? _He resolved to remain on his guard, though it pained him to do so. He had hoped that in Hogwarts he'd be able to relax and be a normal child, instead, this constant wariness reminded him of his own edginess whenever he was with the Dursleys.

_At least Su and Neville can help,_ he decided, _the twins, too, probably. And Su will probably tell Blaise, so he'll do something sneaky and Slytherin about it, too._

He gathered the letters off the table, thanked Mr and Mrs Weasley for talking to the elf with him, and wandered off to read his letters.

There were letters from Su, of course, telling him all about her first Occlumency lessons with Beatrice, and a bunch of pictures of herself with little baby Jasmine, who burbled and gurgled happily in her arms.

_They're my family now_, she'd written, though the words were shaky. _It's hard sometimes, but I know that I have to move on, or I'll be miserable forever. Hey Harry, you want this to be your family, too? We can take you away from the Dursleys if you want_.

Of course, he'd been unable to reply, but looking at Su and Jasmine, Harry thought that they'd make wonderful sisters. Of course, Su would nag him to do his homework, but she'd also teach him all sorts of magic tricks, and Jasmine was, of course, absolutely adorable. She was so tiny and sweet.

Beatrice and Nathan were really friendly. Busy, but friendly, and even amongst the hustle and bustle of their lives, they managed to take the time to have a conversation with Harry, and listen to what he had to say.

That was more than he could say for most adults in his life.

Neville had written, too, mostly about the greenhouses his Gran had finally allowed him to work in, and all the fascinating magical plants there. He wrote that he hoped to see Harry at Su's birthday party, and had enclosed a couple of photographs of himself in a greenhouse, wrapped up in a vine-y hug by a plant twice as tall as him.

Harry grinned, and put all the photos together, to put in the back of the photo album of his parents that he had gotten from Hagrid at the end of the last school year…

Hagrid had also written to Harry, also with some enclosed photographs. He was really enjoying his time at the Romanian Dragon Reserve, and all the other Dragon Handlers were really impressed with his enthusiasm, and with how much the dragons seemed to like him.

The pictures were fascinating. There was Hagrid with Norbert (now known as Norberta) and a few pictures of roaring, fire-breathing dragons, and a couple of photos of Hagrid waving at him and standing next to another man, with red hair. Harry correctly guessed that this other man was Charlie Weasley, who he had heard about from all the other Weasleys around.

_I'll have to get more pages for the photo album, _Harry thought, as he filled the book with photos of his new friends. There were already pictures of himself with Neville and Su – at the movies, at the Department of Mysteries, standing next to their magical manifestations…

_This is my family_, Harry thought happily. _My parents… and my friends… this is the family that I choose. Forget the Dursleys. These are the people I belong with._

* * *

Training at the Department of Mysteries was going well, Harry was hardly ever at the Weasleys for a full day anymore. All of the Unspeakables were trying to puzzle out how he'd defeated Voldemort in '81, and he and Neville and Su were all eager to learn and practice more magic. They felt really privileged to be able to use magic in the summer holidays, and even did their 'Mysterious Homework' with much enthusiasm.

Juliana and her team of magical core investigators performed a lot of tests, and even went out and got permission to examine the magical cores of other students their age so that they could cross-reference and compare results.

Ron had been fascinated by his manifestation, though his had been even fuzzier than Neville's around the edges. Hermione Granger's, of course, had been as sharply defined as Su's – neither girl's features were yet visible on their manifestations, but the Unspeakables agreed that both girls showed a lot of control, though Su was secretly gleeful that it seemed that her magic was more powerful than Hermione's.

With their training in Occlumency, some defensive magic (shields, defensive hexes, illusions and distractions), some Runes (Su was getting closer to 'fixing' Harry's eyes every day, she said), and other useful magic (cleaning charms, locating charms, summoning charms – which all three were very proficient in, to the Unspeakables' surprise – and clothing repair and resizing charms) Harry and Neville's fuzzy manifestations were becoming clearer every day.

"Harry, I do believe you're a prodigy!" Madam Locke gushed one day in mid-August, having been training him in Occlumency for the last two hours. "I've never seen anyone learn how to shield themselves so quickly! Most of our Unspeakables take up to five months to learn to be decent Occlumens!"

"What about Su? And Neville?" Harry asked. Madam Locke smiled at him.

"Miss Li is doing quite well, but is progressing at only the normal rate. You have surpassed her already! In less time than her, too! Mr Longbottom is almost at the same stage as her – he's doing much better now that he's become a little more confident in himself!"

"I'm better than Su?" Harry gaped. He knew that he was better at Transfiguration and Defence than Su, but that was where his magic had a natural leaning, just as Su was naturally more talented in Charms. Occlumency, however, was a discipline of the mind… surely the Ravenclaw would have been better than a Gryffindor?

"You're very clever," Madam Locke told him. "You know, Harry, after you graduate, the Department of Mysteries would be _glad_ to welcome you into the fold! You'd be surprised at how few interested students come to us… mostly Ravenclaws and Slytherins as well. I'm one of only four former Hufflepuffs in the Department, and there are only two former Gryffindors…"

She sighed. "We get more foreign students than anything, almost half our staff are from either Beauxbatons or Durmstrang. Some are from a separate Hogwarts division in Hong Kong though… lovely people…"

"Well, I'll think about it," Harry promised, a little unsure exactly _what_ Madam Locke expected him to do. He was interested in the Department of Mysteries, but he didn't know what he'd study if he were to get a job there.

He and Neville went back to the Li's house for dinner – Nathan made an excellent Sticky Date Pudding – and at the table he brought up the thing that had been nagging him since his birthday… _who was plotting against Hogwarts?_

"So you think Dumbledore is planning to attack Hogwarts?" Nathan asked, and Harry was happy that he wasn't bemused, as the twins had been, or upset, as Mrs Weasley had been, only thoughtful and serious.

"Maybe," Harry admitted. "Mrs Weasley thinks it could be a former follower of Darth Volder, or some other criminal… but I'm not discounting Dumbledore just yet."

"He _does_ have a ridiculous amount of power," Beatrice nodded, and listed off on her fingers; "As Headmaster of Hogwarts, he is in charge of generations of the majority of the wizarding population in Britain, able to shape their views and strengths and weaknesses through their education; as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, he holds plenty of legal sway as well, in the making of laws and policies in the wizarding world; he's got about half the Ministry of Magic in his pocket, and holds a lot of influential power in the media through his reputations; as part of the International Confederation of Wizards, he has influence abroad…"

"It sounds like he's trying to take over the world," Su muttered.

Harry and Neville had to agree. It _did _seem as though Albus Dumbledore had an unorthodox amount of power, with a lot of potential to abuse it.

Something else was bothering Harry, too…

"If Dumbledore's the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, he has a lot of legal duties, right?" He asked. Beatrice nodded. "And as part of the ICW he's got a lot of responsibility in international relations, doesn't he? He's a Supreme Mugwump and also very politically active… how does he have time to pay proper attention to Hogwarts in all of this? Even if he isn't actively attacking Hogwarts, if he's so distracted by other important duties, he's probably not paying an effective amount of attention to our safety, either."

"Harry, please stop making sense," murmured Neville, who was paling drastically. "I don't want to think about Hogwarts not being safe. I mean – we barely escaped with our _lives_ in June. I don't want to do that again."

"Darth Volder's probably not coming back to the school for a while," Harry responded. "I mean, he was pretty banged up after we were done."

"So were you," Neville pointed out.

Harry shook his head. "He's patient, Neville. I mean; he waited around ten years before attacking Hogwarts. I'm sure he can wait a little longer so that he can get back his strength. He's not coming back any time soon, we have time to prepare."

_Technically that's true…_ Su thought. _The diary is just a _memory_ of Voldemort… not the real thing… although it almost was…_

She determinedly decided to snatch any diary off Ginny Weasley as soon as she could manage it. Then she'd burn said diary with a vengeance. No Voldemort this year indeed.

"We'd better stay wary, no matter what," she said. "Aunt Bea's right. Dumbledore is very powerful. And you're right, too, Harry. He's got a lot on his plate; we can't count on him to be aware of everything that goes on in the school. I saw something on a poster in the city a couple of weeks ago – _Stay Alert, Stay Alive_. I mean – it was talking about driving and stuff, but it's a good motto, don't you think?"

"I'm not sure that I like you being so grim, Su," Nathan frowned.

"Nate," Su said, tone serious. "Neville and I are best friends with _Harry Potter_, who, whether we like it or not, is probably going to be the target of unpleasant peoples for a very long time. We're not going to abandon him, no matter what, so we have to be prepared for the danger that comes with the territory."

"That doesn't mean I have to like it," Nathan sulked.

* * *

Su had given up on trying to get Scabbers over the summer holidays – she was just too busy at the Department of Mysteries, and the Burrow was so full of Weasleys that she had no chance of snatching the rat without being seen.

She'd just have to try and get it at Hogwarts. Bloody Peter Pettigrew.

For now they just had to go off to Diagon Alley, where Gilderoy Lockhart would be a self-centred berk, Lucius Malfoy would plant Tom Riddle's diary on Ginny Weasley, and they would also probably shop for school things somewhere in the middle.

"I've got my letter, mum!" Ginny squealed excitedly. "Look! I've got my Hogwarts letter!"

"I knew you would, Ginny," Mrs Weasley beamed proudly, while Harry and Su rolled their eyes at each other. Honestly, why _wouldn't _Ginny get a Hogwarts letter? Those things weren't exactly rare. Harry had been sent around four hundred before he'd finally managed to reply.

"Well, clean up children, finish your breakfasts," Mrs Weasley smiled at them. "We'll floo to Diagon Alley in an hour, okay?"

Flooing into Diagon Alley had been no trouble at all. They'd all emerged from a fireplace in that restaurant opposite Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, and then trotted off happily to Gringotts to stock up.

They were introduced to Hermione Granger's parents, who were both dentists, and Mr Weasley proceeded to ask a lot of silly and condescending questions… which was okay, because the Grangers were equally condescending in such a way that Harry began to wonder if, in fact, Hermione _did_ have a sense of humour, but that it was so bitingly satirical that it was hard to tell.

They all went off their separate ways and agreed to meet up at Flourish and Blotts. Harry and Su lingered in the apothecary, eyeing rare and expensive ingredients with a desperate longing, but knowing that their current skill level wouldn't allow them to experiment. They would have to wait until they were older.

After they left the apothecary, they wandered up and down the alley peering at all the fascinating shops around. Harry bought them both ice creams, his being strawberry-and-peanut-butter, and Su's being hazelnut-and-chocolate-cream, which they slurped happily as they explored.

They examined the Quidditch robes in Quality Quidditch Supplies and argued the pros and cons of the different designs. Harry commented on the new Nimbus 2001, but they both decided that they preferred the sleek, classic design of the Nimbus 2000 to the edgier, more modern 2001. Su admired the line of Cleansweap racing brooms, and asked if Harry might give Neville and her more broom lessons, since those petered off after first year. Harry agreed and they left the store.

In Gambol and Japes they ran into Fred, George, and Lee Jordan, who were stocking up on Dr Filibuster's Fabulous Wet-Start No-Heat Fireworks, and in a tiny junk shop full of broken wands, lopsided brass scales, and old cloaks covered in potion stains, they found Percy, deeply immersed in a small books called _Prefects Who Gained Power._

"I hope to be Minister of Magic, someday," Percy admitted, blushing.

"I'm sure you'll be very good at it," Su nodded.

Harry agreed. "You take good care of people, Percy. And you're a lot more relaxed since… you know… last Halloween. I mean – you saved Ron and Hermione, so you obviously care about people. You're very organised, too."

"Well, thank you," Percy beamed at them. "I can count on your votes then?"

"Eventually," they laughed and wandered off.

Su bought herself a second-hand wand, a very small, five-inch, silver birch and thestral hair – whatever a thestral was – and a wand holster to hold her original ebony and dragon heartstring wand against her left forearm (she was left-handed), and bought a second wand holster for Harry.

"Back pockets are a bad place for your wand," she told him seriously. "You could sit on it, and it would snap, and then where would you be?"

"What's the other wand for?" He asked her, as he strapped the holster to his right forearm and tucked his wand into it.

"Back up," Su said, nodding sensibly. She transfigured an old pencil into a similar colour and shape as the new wand, and tucked both into her hair, so that they looked like those chopsticks that he sometimes saw Chinese ladies wear in their hair.

"Makes sense," Harry nodded. "It works for you?"

"Yes, it does," said Su, looking quite pleased with herself. "I mean – wizards are compatible with more than one wand, otherwise, if they broke theirs, they wouldn't be able to use wand-magic at all. I mean, there are Runes, of course, and basic wandless magic, and the East Asians have some sort of paper-rune-and-chant thing going on… I haven't really figured that out yet, but I feel that wands are really versatile."

Harry rolled his eyes. "I love how you answer a simple question with the history of the world. It makes life _so _much easier."

Su sniffed. "Don't be sarcastic," and she turned away before he could see her smile.

He saw it anyway.

Harry couldn't find another wand that suited him in the junk shop, so they decided that they'd drop by Ollivander's after buying their books at Flourish and Blotts.

They made their way to Flourish and Blotts, but they were by no means the only ones. The children were surprised to find a large crowd jostling outside the doors and trying to get in. A large banner stretched across the upper windows, they discovered, advertised the reason for the crowds:

**_GILDEROY LOCKHART_**

_Will be signing copies of his autobiography_

**_MAGICAL ME_**

_Today between 12:30 and 4:30 pm_

"Who's Gilderoy Lockhart?" Harry asked.

"An idiot," Su snorted.

"A _hero_," one other woman sighed.

"My future husband!" Another cried.

Harry and Su winced and ducked through the crowd, which was mostly made up of women Mrs Weasley's age, and squeezed into the shop, past a harassed-looking wizard at the door, trying to control the hysterical fans.

They quickly gathered up all their second year textbooks, and looked for Mrs Weasley and Nathan and the Drs Granger in the lines. Eventually they found them, standing up near the front of the line. Nathan and Mr Weasley looked sour, the Drs Granger looked confused and slightly uncomfortable, and Mrs Weasley was primping her hair and smoothing out the wrinkles in her robes.

"Oh there you are," Mrs Weasley smiled at them, a little distractedly. "Good, good. We'll be able to see him in a minute…"

Gilderoy Lockhart came slowly into view, seated at a table surrounded by large pictures of his own face, all winking and flashing dazzlingly white teeth at the crowd. The real Lockhart was wearing robes of forget-me-not blue that exactly matched his eyes; a matching fedora was set at a jaunty angle on his wavy hair.

He _was_ very good looking, Su would admit. But his taste in fashion was dreadful. And the way he smiled at people, he was just so… so…

"Smarmy," Harry grimaced, accidentally completing Su's thought. "He's really… smarmy… and sleazy… oily, you know?"

"Agreed," Su murmured, wincing at the wink Lockhart sent to one of his younger, prettier fans that then blushed and giggled as she exited the story. "Disgusting."

A short, irritable-looking man was dancing around taking photographs with a large black camera that emitted puffs of purple smoke with every blinding flash.

"Out of the way, there," he snarled at Su, moving back to get a better shot. "This is for the Daily Prophet–"

"Ow," Su glared at the photographer as she rubbed her foot where he'd stepped on it.

"What a bloody _arse_," Harry glared also.

Gilderoy Lockhart seemed to have heard him, because he looked up, expression quite incensed – probably thought the comment was directed at _him_… which it very well could have been – and saw Su, and Mrs Weasley primping, and the befuddled Grangers, and the hyperventilating Hermione (who was recounting everything that Lockhart had ever written about), and a bemused Ron (who was trying to tune out Granger's chatter) and a sulking Nathan Li and Arthur Weasley.

He also, unfortunately, spotted Harry, who was really not in the mood.

"It can't be _Harry Potter_?" He practically shouted. The loud buzzing in the store quieted a little, less deafening and more loud-roaring-four-hours-later.

"Don't let him get you!" Su whispered frantically, trying to pull Harry out of the way. Harry, uncomfortable with all the staring that was now directed at him, did not need to be told twice, and both of them tried to blend into the crowd, who were being very uncooperative and were trying to push the pair back towards Lockhart.

Lockhart grabbed Harry, and the crowd swallowed Su somehow and he couldn't see her, or Nathan, or even any of the distinctly redheaded Weasleys. There was applause, and chatter, and a camera flashing in his face, and Lockhart _wouldn't let him go_.

Harry was reminded of a bucking broom above the Quidditch Pitch. Harry was reminded of Dudley and his gang, surrounding him on all sides. Harry was reminded of the roaring in his ears when he fought and defeated Quirrell last year.

Harry was reminded of his friends, lost, hopeless, scared and trapped, _and he was unable to protect them_.

He panicked.

And punched Lockhart in the face.

The crowd hushed. Everything fell still and silent, even the photographer stopped his mad ticking, and Lockhart held his hands up to his bloodied nose. Mrs Weasley was the first person to react.

"Now Harry, I know you've just been through a traumatic experience, but you'll have to control your impulses better next time," she scolded gently, marching over to Lockhart and healing his nose with a practiced swish of her wand. "Mr Lockhart, I know that you're excited to meet _the_ Harry Potter, but he's just a boy, and I'd appreciate it if you treated him with a little more respect. He's been through a lot, these past few months."

"Is that so?" Lockhart asked, tilting his head and looking curiously at Harry. "Is there a story attached to this?"

They were interrupted again, this time by Su determinedly hexing her way through the crowd, leaving some very disgruntled women in her wake.

"Harry!" She launched herself at him, wrapping him a hug, before pulling back and checking him over, much to Harry's embarrassment. "Are you okay? He didn't hurt you, did he?" Here she glared at Lockhart, who had the gall to look _amused_.

"I'm fine," Harry assured her, putting a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. "Are you okay? _They_ didn't hurt _you_ did they?" This time he was the one directing a glare over Su's shoulder at the crowd behind her.

They, at least, shuffled and avoided his gaze a little guiltily.

"I'm fine," she patted her face and hair and brushed off her clothes and then grinned up at him. "Yep, fine. Have you bought your books yet? Can we leave yet?"

"And who might you be?" Lockhart asked, as the crowds began to whisper and chatter again.

"This is my friend, Su Li," Harry introduced.

"Gilderoy Lockhart," the man introduced himself with a flourishing bow, taking Su's hand and kissing it, while she made a face at Harry who had to stifle his snickering.

Without preamble, he grabbed Harry to him, pulling so that they stood next to each other and were looking awkwardly at the photographer.

"Ladies and Gentlemen!" Lockhart cried out to the crowd. "What an extraordinary moment this is! The perfect time for me to give a little announcement that has been weeks in the making!

"When young Harry here stepped into Flourish and Blotts today, he only wanted to buy my autobiography – which I shall be happy to present him now, free of charge –" The crowd applauded again. "He had no idea," Lockhart continued, giving Harry a little shake that made his glasses slip to the end of his nose, "that he would shortly be getting much, much more than my book, Magical Me. He and his schoolmates will, in fact, be getting the real magical me. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have great pleasure and pride in announcing that this September, I will be taking up the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!"

Harry fixed his glasses as the camera flashed in his face once more.

"Smile Harry," Lockhart murmured. "And you too, Susan. We'll make the front page, I'm sure of it!"

"Su," Harry muttered darkly, uncomfortable with the attention. "Her name is Su."

"Just smile and get it over with, Harry," Su hissed through clenched teeth. "The sooner this is over, the sooner we can escape."

So they smiled, and the camera flashed, and before Lockhart could do or say anything else, they burrowed into the crowd and made their escape. Sometimes being very small for one's age came in handy.

They emerged outside the door, next to Ginny Weasley, who was standing next to her new cauldron. Harry tipped his Lockhart-signed books into the cauldron.

"Here Ginny, you have these. I'll share with Neville."

"Bet you loved that, didn't you, Potter?" came a sneer from behind that Harry had a little trouble recognising. He turned around and found himself face to face with Draco Malfoy. _I could have_ sworn_ I pitched him onto Ron last year_, Harry mentally sighed. _What am I? An annoying-git-magnet? Why can't these berks leave me alone?_

"Famous Harry Potter," Malfoy continued, "can't even go into a bookshop without making the front page. What's next? A column on your latest trip to the loo?"

"Leave him alone," snapped Ginny – she had a surprisingly commanding voice, for someone Harry had never heard speaking. "He doesn't want all that!"

"Oooh, got yourself _another_ girlfriend, Potter?" Malfoy asked, leering at Su, who stepped forward to slap him silly. They were interrupted by the timely (or perhaps untimely?) arrival of Ron and Hermione, both with their arms full of Lockhart's books.

"Oh, it's you," said Ron, looking at Malfoy as if he were something unpleasant on the sole of his shoe. "Don't you have better things to do, Malfoy, besides stalking Potter?"

Malfoy flushed. "I'm here to make some purchases, as proper wizards do," here he sneered at the crowd of Lockhart's fans. "I'm surprised to see _you_ here, Weasley. I suppose that your parents will go hungry for a month to pay for all those."

Harry was privately thinking that if Mrs Weasley cut back the lavishness of her meals, they probably _would_ save a lot of money… but he wasn't exactly going to side with Malfoy over Ron in this particular conversation.

Ron had gone red and taken a step towards Malfoy, with much the same expression as Su – who was still itching to slap that smirk off Malfoy's face – and Harry was getting more and more annoyed as the minutes progressed.

Hermione stopped Ron from decking Malfoy – a pity – and then even more people joined the fray, with Mr Weasley and Fred and George stumbling out of the doors and into the little circle of hostile students.

"Ron! What are you doing?" Mr Weasley asked.

"Well, well, well. _Arthur. Weasley_." A tall man with long white blond hair – even longer than Draco's – stepped up behind Malfoy. Each was the spitting image of the other, though obviously there was a difference in age and height. Also, Malfoy Jr.'s sneer needed work; he looked very immature and not at all intimidating.

"Lucius," Mr Weasley nodded curtly.

"Busy time at the Ministry, I hear," said Mr Malfoy. "All those raids…I hope they're paying you overtime?" He reached into Ginny's cauldron and extracted, from amid the glossy Lockhart books, a very old, very battered copy of A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration.

"Obviously not," Mr Malfoy said. "Dear me, what's the use of being a disgrace to the name of wizard if they don't even pay you well for it?"

Mr Weasley flushed darker than either Ron or Ginny.

"We have a very different idea of what disgraces the name of wizard, Malfoy," he said.

"Clearly," said Mr Malfoy, his pale eyes straying to Mr and Mrs Granger, who were watching apprehensively. "The company you keep, Weasley…and I thought your family could sink no lower."

There was a thud of metal as Ginny's cauldron went flying; Mr Weasley had thrown himself at Mr Malfoy, knocking him backward into a bookshelf. Dozens of heavy spell books came thundering down on all their heads.

"Get him, Dad!" shouted one of the twins.

"No, Arthur! No!" Mrs Weasley scolded.

More shelves were knocked over, and many blows were exchanged. Mr Weasley was definitely winning, which made Harry feel quite proud, having established a general dislike of the elder Malfoy after Draco had spent the whole of first year quoting '_my father'_.

"Gentlemen! Please!" Pleaded the hassled door assistant, who looked as though he wanted to cry. "_Please_!"

"Break it up, there, gents, break it up –"

Hagrid was wading toward them through the sea of books. In an instant he had pulled Mr Weasley and Mr Malfoy apart. Mr Weasley had a cut lip and Mr Malfoy had been hit in the eye, with an Encyclopaedia of Toadstools. He was still holding Ginny's old Transfiguration book. He thrust it at her, his eyes glittering with malice.

"Here, girl – take your book – it's the best your father can give you –"

Pulling himself out of Hagrid's grip he beckoned to Draco and swept from the shop.

"Hagrid?" Mr Weasley peered up at the giant, dazed from a blow to the head. "What are you doing here? I thought you were in Romania."

"Jus' getting my effects. The bank in Romania's run by dwarves. Pesky buggers. An' there's no Gringotts branch anywhere nearby. The goblins aren't happy with me righ' now."

"Oh."

"Yeh should've ignored him, Arthur," said Hagrid, almost lifting Mr Weasley off his feet as he straightened his robes. "Rotten ter the core, the whole family, everyone knows that – no Malfoy's worth listenin' ter – bad blood, that's what it is – come on now – let's get outta here."

The assistant looked as though he wanted to stop them leaving, but he barely came up to Hagrid's waist and seemed to think better of it. They hurried up the street, the Grangers shaking with fright and Mrs Weasley beside herself with fury.

Su tried to make a grab for the diary in Ginny's cauldron, but at that moment Nathan caught up to her and hoisted her away.

"Young lady, the use of underage magic is _forbidden _outside of Hogwarts for underage students," he began his lecture, marching her away. "And _hexing_ innocent bystanders…"

"But Uncle Nate!" Su cried, struggling to escape his grip. Damn it! The Diary! "What if Harry had been hurt? I couldn't let them get to him!"

"I'll be talking with your mother," Nate sniffed, and Su stiffened, though Nathan did not appear to notice. "She will have a _very_ firm talking to with you, young lady!"

"Bye, Su!" Harry waved, watching his friend get dragged away.

Su was still trying to figure out when Nathan and Beatrice had decided that they were her parents.

* * *

**A/N: **_Character development - I live for it! You'll notice that due to different friendships and circumstances Harry's character is a little different (hopefully not too much, I don't want him to seem OOC, just... a different progression, that's all)_

_Anyway, here's the update, tell me what you think!_


	4. Back to Hogwarts

**Author's Note:**_ Be warned, all ye who enter here; beyond this author's note lie such fabled beasts as nargles, Luna Lovegood, witty retorts, and sortings. _

_Let it also be noted that this humble writer does not own Harry Potter, though the author desperately wishes to rectify this situation, alas, such things are not meant to be. JK Rowling's beloved property, Harry Potter remains. _

* * *

**~ Back to Hogwarts ~**

"It's not funny!" Both Harry and Su protested, when Neville met them on Platform Nine and Three Quarters, sniggering over the _Daily Prophet _article featuring both of them and Gilderoy Lockhart titled _Lockhart Steals Hearts at Hogwarts!_

In the article there were contained some truths. Harry punched Lockhart in the face. Lockhart would be teaching at Hogwarts. Su had been in there, somewhere.

What had Neville crying with laughter was the not-so-true parts of the article, which generally detailed that Harry Potter, enraged that his 'darling girlfriend, Susana Lily' had a crush on 'the marvellously attractive' Gilderoy Lockhart, and had decided to defend his 'alpha male' status by punching the other man in the face.

Gilderoy had of course (in his imagination) given Harry a long and insightful lecture on what it means to be a 'true man', inspiring many of the witches and wizards present, and Harry had apologised for his actions, made up with his girlfriend 'who still looked longingly at a man that she could never have' (photo-Su was trying to burn holes in Lockhart's head with her eyes) and they had gone on their way, content in the knowledge that their hero, their mentor, the man they respected most in the world, would be coming to Hogwarts to teach them Defence Against the Dark Arts.

Su decided that one other thing she would have to do in the wizarding world (add to the list; destroy diary, rescue Sirius Black, slap Malfoy, buy Blaise Zabini a birthday present, slay Voldemort, feed Pettigrew to a dementor…) was to locate all competent wizards in journalism – even if she had to poach them from overseas – and establish a proper newspaper to rival the drivel that was _the Daily Prophet_… and then burn the subpar paper _to the ground_.

Then she'd feed the ashes to a basilisk. Or a dragon. Or maybe Malfoy (prat).

Neville had cut out the extra photos – of Lockhart kissing Su's hand, of Harry holding Su protectively away from the crowd (and Lockhart)… there was even a picture of Mr Weasley and Mr Malfoy brawling, though it was hard to tell who they were through the falling books and flailing limbs. Harry was standing to one side, hugging Su tightly so that she wouldn't punch Malfoy Junior in the face, but with Draco cut out of the photo it just looked as though Harry was holding Su in a passionate and protective embrace.

He was now, in fact, re-enacting the photograph, trying to prevent Su from clawing Neville's eyes out and feeding them to Trevor.

"Neville, put the newspaper away before she hurts someone," Harry demanded, a little desperately. Neville grinned and tucked the paper back into his bag, while Su settled back, muttering about suing for misrepresentation.

"I see you've been busy this summer."

"Blaise!" Su threw her arms around him and pulled the Slytherin into a hug, while Blaise smiled at Harry and Neville over her shoulder.

"Careful, Li," he smirked. "Potter might get jealous."

"Oh, _not_ you, too! We're not– it's not– Blaise _we're twelve!_" Su spluttered, blushing.

"I have it in writing, though!" Blaise flashed a sharp-toothed grin, pulling up his copy of the _Daily Prophet_. It was promptly incinerated, though whether by Su or Harry it was difficult to tell. Blaise yelped and dropped the ashes before his fingers were burned.

"Serves you right," Harry rolled his eyes, tucking his wand back in its holster. "Next year I'm getting my school stuff on a day when a celebrity _isn't _scheduled to ruin my life."

Blaise and Neville laughed. Su was on Harry's side.

"So what did you get up to over the summer?" Blaise asked as they climbed onto the train. "I went to Italy, but there's not much to do out in the country except fly, and it gets a little dull without other kids around."

"We went to the movies!" Neville cried. "_May the Force be with you." _

"Movies?" Blaise repeated.

"Oh, another of those poor, ignorant souls," Su sighed melodramatically. "Harry, we must teach him to appreciate the great things in life, before it is too late!"

"Next summer, we promise," Harry nodded, faux-solemn. "We will take you to a movie, preferably _Star Wars_. You will never see the world the same again."

"It's one of those muggle things, isn't it?" Blaise narrowed his eyes sceptically.

"Oh, this is one of those pureblood things, isn't it?" Su crossed her arms, matching his tone. "I'll have you know, Blaise Zabini, that a lot of great wizarding inventions were inspired by muggle ones – the wireless, for one. Jazz. Indoor toilets. You don't have to be so sceptical of things just because they were made by muggles."

"Whatever," Blaise shrugged in dismissal, and then he walked off to go find his Slytherin friends; Theodore Nott and Daphne Greengrass.

"Don't worry about him, Su," Neville put a hand on her shoulder. "He's just comfortable in the wizarding world. It's a culture thing. I mean – I know that some wizards in China eat cat. I don't think I could do that, you know?"

"I guess," she murmured, but she was sulking. The boys rolled their eyes and left her to it, Harry levitating their trunks up into the racks above their seats.

"So let's see the new wand, then, Harry," Neville said when they'd settled back in their seats, Su still glaring grumpily out the window.

Harry obligingly pulled out the wand tucked into his sock.

"Hazel and phoenix feather, eight inches," he presented it proudly. "Good for transfiguration and charms. Ollivander was a bit surprised to see me again, and it took as almost two hours to find this, but I like it. It's comfortable, you know?"

"Back up wands seem like a good idea," Neville sighed, returning Harry's second wand. "I mean – look, I'm not paranoid or anything – but we _did_ get kidnapped last year." He shuddered. "I just don't want to be unprepared."

"I know what you mean," Su nodded, thinking of basilisks and secret chambers, of graveyards and rats, and of all the things she couldn't foresee past Harry's fifteenth birthday. "You just feel safer with a weapon in hand."

"Or a tool," Harry countered. "Wands can help us build shelters, and stuff. Help us hunt and find food, or water, or something like that."

"Planning on running away, Harry?" Fred asked from the doorway.

"Better get yourself a tent, mate," George grinned, dropping in between Harry and Su, and pulling the girl into a bone-crushing hug. "Ickle Su-Su! It's been too long!"

"I saw you last week!" Su gasped.

"Hand her over," Fred gestured, and Su found herself being flung across the compartment into the other Weasley twin's waiting arms, while George wrapped an arm around Harry in a much more 'manly' fashion.

"How've you been, kid?" George winked at him, as Fred smothered a protesting Su in wet smacking kisses. "Not following Lockhart around, like a little lost puppy?"

"Oh, give it up," Harry rolled his eyes, shoving George in the ribs. "Lockhart's a wanker. I don't care if he's some kind of hero – he's a ponce."

"If you say so," George nodded sagely, while Neville ducked under Su's flailing fist and she struggled to escape Fred's overly amorous grasp.

"Get off me!" Su squealed, trying – and failing – not to laugh as Fred tickled her.

"We thought you needed cheering up," Fred told her, tickling mercilessly.

"Saw you sulking," George nodded.

"Feeling better?"

"YES! Just let go!"

"All right," Fred deposited Su in Neville's lap, he, Harry, and George now roaring with laughter. "We'll be off then, little lovelies, don't do anything we wouldn't do."

"Well, that gives us loads of options," Harry grinned. "For example, we could transfigure the Slytherin Quidditch team's shoes into rollerblades and watch them fumble."

"An excellent plan, Harry," Fred agreed, winking at his twin. "An excellent plan indeed."

"Do you need help with your hair, Su?" Neville snickered, as Su tried desperately to comb said hair into a semblance of neatness.

"I'm not talking to you," she sniffed.

Neville shrugged, and pulled out a pack of exploding snap, just as the compartment door slid open again.

"Is there any room in here? We can't find anyone else that we know." Ron and Hermione stood in the doorway, looking a little uncertain. They got along well enough with Harry and his friends, but they weren't particularly close.

"Sure," Harry waved them in. "We need more hands for exploding snap, anyway. Su's a bit busy sulking about her hair."

"I'm not sulking!" She protested, still trying to tame the mess made by the overly enthusiastic Weasley twins. "Don't be rude."

"See," Harry grinned. "Sulking."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "_Boys_." She muttered, pushing past Harry to sit next to Su, and fishing a hairbrush out of her backpack. "Here, let me help."

"Thank you," Su flashed a grateful smile, while Ron ignored the girls in favour of joining in with the exploding snap game.

The train ride passed without much more trouble. Oliver Wood dropped by to say hi to Harry and Neville and Su, tossing a couple of Chocolate Frogs at his 'favourite snot-nosed second years' with some left over for Ron and Hermione.

The girls eventually stopped sulking (and trading hair-care tips) and joined the boys in their exploding snap game, which later expanded to include Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnegan, Padma and Parvati Patil, Michael Corner and Terry Boot. They were all crammed into the compartment, and had eventually snagged the passing Head Boy (Atticus Lake) and asked him to expand the compartment for them, which he did.

Su decided that one of her next little projects would be to learn expansion charms, and when she told this to Hermione, the studious Gryffindor leapt on the chance to improve her skills.

"We can ask Professor Flitwick for resources! Oooh, and we can practice on purses that we can put into our pockets, and then we can carry our school books in the little purses!" Hermione rambled.

"I think she's excited," Su whispered to Harry.

"Oh? What gave it away?"

* * *

They climbed into the carriages while the first years wandered off to the boats with Hagrid, Ron waving goodbye to his sister. Su was a little disturbed by the great leathery skeleton-horse pulling the carriage, but no one else mentioned it, so she let it be.

"So what happened to that crazy house elf that visited you in the summer?" She asked Harry. She'd meant to ask him at the station, when he'd made it through the barrier without difficulty, but had been distracted by his comparison of the barrier to the portal-transportation method being studied in the Department of Mysteries.

"Dunno," Harry shrugged. "I think we should be on our guard, though. Just in case there _is_ something going on at Hogwarts. I don't want to have to go back to the Dursleys."

"You know, the way that they treat you can't be legal," Su frowned. "We should look into getting you out of there. Maybe your parents left a will with other possible guardians in case your Aunt was… well, dead maybe, but unsuitable works too."

"I'd never thought of that," Harry frowned. "Where would the will be?"

"Probably Gringotts," Neville told them, as the carriage rattled up the hill towards the castle. "They handle all the wizarding assets, and the Ministry just isn't a reliable place to keep your documents. It's a bit corrupt." He scowled. "My Gran says they keep secrets in a sieve – except for the ones that are bought and paid for."

"That's no good," Harry frowned. "Unstable governments are… well. Unstable."

"Well, it's not like we can do anything about it right now," Su pointed out. "We'll just have to wait until Percy gets into office."

"Percy Weasley as Minister of Magic," Neville hummed. "Yeah, I think he'd clean everything up. He'd be just like a prefect, assigning all the corrupt bureaucrats detentions for sloppy work and misrepresentation and stuff."

They all laughed.

"Can you imagine?" Harry asked. "_This is absolutely unacceptable, Mr Smith. The law clearly states that you must wear a _scarlet_ tie on Tuesdays. You, sir, are wearing _ruby red_. I expected higher conduct from you, my own secretary._"

"Harry," Su gasped, almost falling off her seat from laughing so hard. "Please. Why?"

"I can't help it if I'm fabulous," Harry shrugged, striking a pose. Su and Neville were helpless to resist the hysterical hilarity. "It must be my Percy-impression."

They eventually made it up to the school, wandering into the Great Hall with the rest of the students bar the first years. Su expressed her disappointment in the cloudy night, as she usually loved looking up at the 'stars' in the Great Hall, and she and the boys parted ways as they wandered off to the Gryffindor table, and she joined Padma at the Ravenclaw table, right on the end where the new first years would sit.

Pansy Parkinson and Millicent Bulstrode were glaring at her from across the hall. Su vowed to think up more aggressive techniques to deal with bullying this year. Bat-bogey hexes and jelly-legs jinxes, and maybe several distracting illusions sounded like a safe bet. Really, she didn't want any trouble this year. She had enough on her plate as it was.

_Get diary off Ginny Weasley; capture that stupid rat Pettigrew; prove Sirius Black innocent; push Lockhart off a cliff or feed him to Mrs Norris…_

Professor McGonagall soon entered the hall, followed by a gaggle of gaping first years. Su spotted Ginny Weasley's flaming red hair somewhere in the middle. She was a little miffed to notice that most of the first years were taller than her. She could have _sworn _that she'd grown over the summer.

The Sorting Hat sang another song, though Su wasn't really listening to it. It was more of the same as the previous year, telling the students about the virtues of each of the houses and all that. Instead, she was examining the first years, lined up nervously at the front.

Back when Harry Potter and Hogwarts had all been just a story to her, Su had thought that there were loads and loads of characters around. Now that she was actually living in it, a real world, she realised that there were so many _others_ that were never even mentioned. Beatrice and Nathan, of course, were her family, as real as real people could be. She knew that Colin Creevey and Ginny Weasley were coming to Hogwarts this year, but she had no idea who any of the others were, and that surprised her, though it shouldn't have.

This _was_ a real world now, to her. These were real people.

_Real people for Voldemort to hurt_, she thought, suddenly chilled. She had to get that diary off Ginny Weasley – _before_ she opened the Chamber of Secrets. They would have a nice, normal, uneventful year… with the possibility of a hunt for a shape-shifting murderer and an attempt to prove innocent a man rotting away in Azkaban.

McGonagall began the sorting. There were some Slytherins, a Hufflepuff, and a Gryffindor sorted before "Creevey, Colin" joined the table of lions. After that she had a long wait Ginny Weasley to join Gryffindor, all the way at the end of the list.

She was surprised at the large number of students joining Hogwarts that year. Her own year was maybe forty-odd students all told, but this _massive_ group of first years held maybe a hundred or more.

The four tables were quickly filling up, and everyone got a little seasick when the hall (and tables) magically expanded to accommodate the new students.

And that was when "Lovegood, Luna" sat down next to her. Su had noticed the girl, standing in line waiting to be called, because she stood out. She'd not been wearing any shoes, for one thing, and one sock was striped orange and blue, while the other was striped pink and silver. She was also wearing what looked like small radishes as earrings and had a cork on a ribbon around her neck. Her large silver eyes were so wide that she seemed to me surprised by everything that she saw, while on the other hand, her totally calm demeanour gave Su the impression that this girl was rarely surprised at all.

"Hello," she said, unsure how to behave with first years, especially not with this particularly odd one. However, she was curious. "Why the radishes?"

"Pardon?" Luna turned to her, serene.

"I just was wondering why your earrings were shaped like radishes. Do you have a particular fondness for radishes?" Su asked.

"Oh, they're dirigible plums, actually," Luna told her mildly. "They're supposed to enhance the wisdom of the wearer, but I don't _feel_ any different. Still perhaps I was just unnaturally wise before wearing the earrings."

"Perhaps," Su nodded, making a mental note to look up dirigible plums later. "Do they also help one fly? A dirigible is a type of muggle aircraft, you see."

"Oh? I'd always thought it was a sort of humming bird," Luna blinked at her.

"We're Ravenclaws," Su grinned, waving a dismissive hand. "We'll look into it. I'm Su, by the way. Su Li."

"Luna Lovegood," the blonde took Su's proffered hand, and kissed it, baffling the former.

"I meant for you to shake it," Su said, but she was smiling.

"Daddy taught me 'proper manners'," Luna explained. "Old habits are hard to break."

Su grinned. "I do believe, Luna, that you are awesome."

Luna blinked at her. "Thank you for saying so."

"So is the necklace a charm, too? Or just because you like corks?"

"It's to keep away the nargles," Luna explained. "Butterbeer is best, but firewhiskey can work too. Butter is fattening, and nargles are very vain, but it's the alcohol that they're allergic to, even in very small amounts."

"Would it work if you strung up a shrunken bottle of butterbeer on a chain? Then, if you got thirsty, you'd have something to drink, too."

Luna nodded sagely. "Yes, that is a very good idea. I shall have to write to Daddy about acquiring some butterbeer bottles."

"We could always ask the Weasley twins," Su mused.

"I suppose."

Ginny Weasley was eventually sorted into Gryffindor, much to her brothers' relief, and Su eyed the redhead first year and Ron carefully. For once she was actually annoyed that she wasn't in Gryffindor. The diary and the rat were out of her reach for now, and she didn't know how to fix that.

Well, she had until Halloween to plot, anyway.

* * *

In the morning they received their schedules. Harry and Neville began their day with Double Herbology with the Hufflepuffs. Su had a free, and was going to ask Professor Flitwick about expansion charms, and then go see Professor Babbling about some questions she had about Ancient Runes – never mind that she couldn't take that class until the next year.

Harry quite enjoyed Herbology – although most of that was probably due to the fact that Neville was practically a prodigy in the subject and had helped him with most of his homework. However, Harry had often worked in the gardens on Aunt Petunia's orders, and though he disliked chores, at least gardening had gotten him away from his nasty relatives for hours at a time, giving him a chance at a little peace and quiet.

He and Neville left the castle together, falling in with Hannah Abbott and Susan Bones along the way, as they usually paired up with the two Hufflepuffs for group projects.

As they neared the greenhouses, they saw the rest of the class standing outside, waiting for Professor Sprout. Harry, Neville, Susan, and Hannah had only just joined them, when she came striding into view across the lawn, looking very put off, followed by Gilderoy Lockhart.

The two professors were an interesting study in contrasts. Professor Sprout was a squat little witch who wore worn and perpetually dirty robes for all her work in the greenhouses, and was currently sporting a very sour expression. Gilderoy Lockhart, however, was tall and elegant, immaculately dressed in sweeping turquoise robes, his golden hair shining under a perfectly positioned turquoise hat with gold trimming, and was beaming at the students.

Most of the females, Harry noticed, were enraptured. Most of the males, he noticed, did not seem to care. He, himself, felt mildly ill, and wondered if it had something to do with the colour of Lockhart's robes, or just Lockhart in general.

"Hello, students!" Lockhart beamed. "I was just telling you dear Professor about some of the fascinating plant life I've encountered in my travels. There was this one time that this Spanish witch – now _she_ was a minx – introduced me to–"

"Greenhouse Three, today, chaps!" Professor Sprout interrupted, looking distinctly disgruntled, and not at all her usual cheerful self.

There was a murmur of interest. They had only ever worked in greenhouse one before – greenhouse three housed far more interesting and dangerous plants. Professor Sprout took a large key from her belt and unlocked the door. Harry caught a whiff of damp earth and fertilizer mingling with the heavy perfume of some giant, umbrella-sized flowers dangling from the ceiling.

"Well, I'll be off then, lads," Lockhart waved them off with a jovial wink. "I'll see you all in class, later! I'm looking forward to it!"

Harry wondered if Lockhart had already seen them, recalling Su's theory that all Hogwarts teachers had time-turners to keep up with all the classes that they taught.

Professor Sprout was standing behind a trestle bench in the centre of the greenhouse. About twenty pairs of different-coloured earmuffs were lying on the bench.

"We'll be repotting Mandrakes today," Professor Sprout announced. "Now, who can tell me the properties of the Mandrake?"

To nobody's surprise, Hermione's hand was first into the air.

"Mandrake, or Mandragora, is a powerful restorative," said Hermione, sounding as usual as though she had swallowed the textbook. "It is used to return people who have been transfigured or cursed to their original state."

"Excellent. Ten points to Gryffindor," said Professor Sprout. "The Mandrake forms an essential part of most antidotes. It is also, however, dangerous. Who can tell me why?"

Hermione's hand narrowly missed Harry's glasses as it shot up again.

"The cry of the Mandrake is fatal to anyone who hears it," she said promptly.

"Precisely. Take another ten points," said Professor Sprout. "Now, the Mandrakes we have here are still very young."

She pointed to a row of deep trays as she spoke, and everyone shuffled forward for a better look. A hundred or so tufty little plants, purplish green in colour, were growing there in rows. Harry knew what was lurking underneath, having looked through the textbook with Neville, and felt slightly uneasy about messing about with a baby plant, but was reassured by having Neville on his side.

Following the demonstration, they split off into groups to re-pot the mandrakes, and were joined by Hannah and Susan, as well as another Hufflepuff boy that Harry had never spoken to, though he knew him by sight – Justin Finch-Fletchley.

In the brief thirty-second period between grouping up and putting on their earmuffs, Harry learned a lot about Justin. He learned that Justin had been down for Eton, but had decided to go to Hogwarts instead; that Justin came from a long line of English blue bloods and was expected to keep up his 'proper' education as well; that Justin loathed math and Potions with a passion; and also that Justin talked a lot.

He was reminded, actually, of Nathan Li, and the comparison was so perfect that Harry started imagining Justin in a pink apron and baking. It wasn't that hard.

Following Herbology, Harry and Neville dashed back to Gryffindor tower to wash off all the dirt and grime, and then met with Su for transfiguration. Harry was thoroughly confused by Su's constant staring at Ron Weasley, and really hoped that she didn't have a crush on the redhead. Ron was nice and all, but a bit thick when it came to girls, and he thought that Su could do better.

On the other hand, Su was muttering about 'stupid rats', so maybe it wasn't a crush after all.

"What've we got this afternoon?" Harry asked Neville, sitting at the Gryffindor table for Lunch with Ron and Hermione.

"Defence Against the Dark Arts," said Hermione at once.

"Why," demanded Ron, seizing her schedule, "have you outlined all Lockhart's lessons in little hearts?"

Hermione snatched the schedule back, blushing furiously.

Harry and Neville exchanged horrified glances and resolved never to mention the fact to Su, who held Lockhart in the deepest contempt and had confided her plan to destroy the _Daily Prophet_ with them, having decided to feed the ashes to Lockhart now.

They were just finishing lunch when Harry became aware that he was being watched. Turning to his left he noticed one of the new first years (seriously, there were loads of them) staring at him. The first year was a small, mousy-haired boy, clutching what looked like an ordinary muggle camera in his hands. The moment Harry looked at him, he turned bright red.

"All right, Harry? I'm – I'm Colin Creevey," he said breathlessly, taking a tentative step forward. "I'm in Gryffindor, too. D'you think – would it be all right if – can I have a picture?" he said, raising the camera hopefully.

"A picture?" Harry repeated blankly.

"So I can prove I've met you," said Colin Creevey eagerly, edging further forward. "I know all about you. Everyone's told me. About how you survived when You-Know-Who tried to kill you and how he disappeared and everything and how you've still got a lightning scar on your forehead," (his eyes raked Harry's hairline), "and a boy in my dormitory said if I develop the film in the right potion, the pictures'll move." Colin drew a great shuddering breath of excitement and said, "It's amazing here, isn't it? I never knew all the odd stuff I could do was magic till I got the letter from Hogwarts. My dad's a milkman; he couldn't believe it either. So I'm taking loads of pictures to send home to him. And it'd be really good if I had one of you" — he looked imploringly at Harry — "maybe your friend could take it and I could stand next to you? And then, could you sign it?"

"Why're you so excited about me?" Harry asked, still completely baffled by his own fame, and a little disoriented by yet another Nathan-Li-Talks-A-Lot character. "I mean – I've not done anything special. I just survived infancy, you know?"

Colin blushed bright red again and looked away. "I thought… well… you're going to think it's stupid." Harry waited, and Colin blushed more, the tips of his ears turning red. "It's just that… you're only a kid! Like me! So, you know, I thought that maybe I could be a hero, too? I love my dad, but he's always saying how we're just a nothing family… but now I'm a wizard, and maybe I can do great things too! Like you?"

Harry felt a lump in his throat, though he wasn't exactly sure why.

"Sure," he said, after a moment. "Nev, do you mind?"

"Okay, Harry," Neville took the camera and quickly snapped a couple of photographs.

"Just bring them back to me when they're done," Harry smiled, and Colin thanked him with a hug – (a hug?) – and ran off before Harry could say anything else.

"You'd better not let him meet Ginny," Ron observed. "They'll be starting a Harry Potter Fan Club before you know it!"

Harry shuddered.

"Why'd you do that for him, Harry?" Neville asked later, on their way to Defence. "I know you don't like people paying too much attention to you. You don't like the fame."

"I just…" it was hard to put into words. "He reminds me of me, a little." He said, finally. "And you. We've always wanted to be more than what people told us we were. Your family loves you, but they treated you like a squib for years. My family's always called me a freak, and worthless and… I just thought… maybe I do want to be a hero."

He stopped, looking at Neville intently, rubbing his scar and scowling.

"I just wish it could be on my own terms. That people would think that I was great for something I'd actually _done_ instead of something I can't even remember. You know?"

Neville nodded slowly. "Yeah, I get it. I do." He looked down at his wand, the one that worked for _him_, the wand that had been a Christmas present from Harry and Su last year. "I know exactly what you mean."

* * *

**A/N: **_Oh god, when Colin Creevey died, and he was just underage, and he was only following his hero - I don't care how strange or annoying he was. He was just a kid. Just a kid, and he died. You have no idea how much his death hurt me. Rowling, what happened, did you just get a pack of cards labeled 'character deaths that will emotionally traumatise readers' and just pick and choose at random?_

_On a separate note - Reviewers! I task you - tell me who your favourite character is and why, and if they're not featured much in the story, I'll try to fix that and include more scenes with them!_


	5. Suspicions

**Author's Note:**_ Herein lie unforeseen obstacles for our heroes. Lockhart being an idiot, of course, and Harry and Neville and Su being brilliant. Also, Luna talks about chocolate, briefly... and the twins are there, too.  
_

_I'll take this opportunity to remind you that I don't actually own Harry Potter, I'm just playing with his universe. _

* * *

**~ Suspicions ~**

Harry and Neville walked into Defence Against the Dark Arts feeling somewhat morose. They nodded at Blaise Zabini and ignored Malfoy. Ron and Hermione had saved them seats near the back, and the boys all rolled their eyes at Hermione's bright-eyed eagerness as they awaited the entrance of their new Professor.

Sure enough, as soon as they sat down, Lockhart made his grand entrance. The door burst open with a loud bang, and Lockhart strode inside, robes billowing (though not as well as Snape's, probably because he had a jovial bounce to his step) and he swept up to the front of the classroom, beaming at them.

He reached forward and plucked Pansy Parkinson's copy of _Travels With Trolls_, and ignored her hitching of breath and slight angling towards him. Harry grimaced.

Crushing on a teacher? Yuck.

"Me," he pointed to his image on the cover of his book, and his photo winked at the class. "Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defence League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award." He paused, and then grinned – he may have been going for a sheepish look, but it just gave him an uncanny resemblance to a bunny rabbit. Harry didn't have time to think about that because Lockhart kept talking; "But I don't talk about that. I didn't get rid of the Bandon Banshee by smiling at her!"

He laughed, and looked expectantly at the class as if waiting for their shared humour. Most of the girls giggled, but most of the boys were twelve and in that awkward stage of being 'too cool for school'. Lockhart's face fell.

"Well," he began again, clearing his throat. "I see you've all brought your complete set of textbooks! Well done!"

"Bet he made a killing, getting us all to buy his books," Neville scowled at the pile of shiny textbooks sitting on the desk between Harry and himself. "When we get back to the dorm, lets see if Dean'll paint over his smarmy face?"

"Agreed," Harry murmured, turning his textbook over so that Lockhart's sleazy grin was facedown on the table. He wondered if it would hurt the image if he poked it with a stick… or if he drew a curly moustache on Lockhart's face…

Lockhart was still talking – something about a pop quiz. Harry groaned. He'd only read through a few of the books, finding them to be full of fancy and not much else. He hadn't learned how a werewolf differed from a real wolf, and from Ron's descriptions of the troll, it looked as though the information that _was_ contained in the books were not entirely accurate. He did not have much faith in this class.

Lockhart handed out the sheets of parchment with the test questions, and gave them thirty minutes to answer all the questions. Harry hoped it'd be multiple-choice.

_1. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favourite colour?_

_2. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's secret ambition?_

_3. What, in your opinion, is Gilderoy Lockhart's greatest achievement to date?_

There were fifty-four questions. All off them contained Gilderoy Lockhart's full name. Three of them related to the actual Defence of Oneself from Dark Arts or Dark Creatures. Most of them were flattery-bait.

Harry didn't even bother. He just wrote, _I donated my textbooks to charity and didn't get the chance to read them over the summer._

It was kind of, sort of, true, though he felt guilty about referring to Ginny as 'charity', and he was sure that she wouldn't appreciate it. Still, there was no way he'd play along with this farce of a class.

Around him, he noticed that Neville, Ron, and Seamus had similarly given up. For a moment it appeared that Dean was working diligently, but when the tall boy leaned back, Harry saw that he had been drawing a very impressive image of a lion eating a wizard, who may or may not have been wearing Lockhart's hat.

Hermione, however, was definitely working, answering each question with furious diligence. He wondered if she knew any good spells for hand-cramp relief, seeing as she appeared to be writing a small essay for each question, and still finished the test on time.

Half an hour later, Lockhart collected the papers and rifled through them in front of the class, while said class took the opportunity to finish any left over homework from other subjects, such as Transfiguration or Potions, that they hadn't finished over the summer.

Lockhart sighed loudly, sorting the tests into two piles. Harry mentally labelled one pile 'girls', noticing that Lockhart had stamped each of them with something light purple and glittery; and the other pile 'boys' – mostly because he could see Dean's lion on top.

"This is very disappointing," Lockhart was saying. "Hardly any of you remembered that my favourite colour is lilac. I say so in _Year With the Yeti_. And quite a few of you need to reread _Wanderings With Werewolves_ more carefully – I clearly state in chapter twelve that my ideal birthday gift would be harmony between all magical and non-magical peoples – though I wouldn't say no to a large bottle of Firewhisky!"

He gave them another roguish wink. Ron was now staring at Lockhart with an expression of disbelief on his face; Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas were shaking with silent laughter. Hermione, on the other hand, was listening to Lockhart with rapt attention and gave a start when he mentioned her name.

"Miss Granger appears to be the only student who recalled that my secret ambition is to rid the world of evil and to market my own range of hair-care products. Well done, Miss Granger! In fact," he flipped through the test, "Miss Granger has received full marks! Where is Miss Granger?"

Ron gaped at his friend, his expression one of mixed horror, confusion, and betrayal, as Hermione raised her hand. He seemed to be mouthing the words _'full marks?'_ over and over again.

"Excellent!" Lockhart beamed. "Ten points to Gryffindor! Now, on to business; today's lesson is to be a practical one." He bent down and retrieved from under his desk a large, covered cage, and dropped it onto the table.

The cage rattled dramatically, and several students noticeably paled, while Harry steeled himself. If he could face Quirrell with Darth Volder in the back of his head, then he could handle whatever lilac-loving Lockhart could throw at him.

"Now – be warned!" Lockhart declared, suddenly serious. "It is my job to arm you against the foulest creatures known to wizardkind! You may find yourselves facing your worst fears in this room. Know only that no harm can befall you whilst I am here. All I ask is that you remain calm."

Darth Volder aside, Harry was becoming quite curious about what might be in the cage. He leaned forwards in his seat, and felt a little less ashamed of his curiosity when he noticed that Neville had done the same. Hermione herself, was quite shameless, and was openly ogling – though whether it was the cage or Lockhart's backside Harry would never know (and didn't want to).

Lockhart placed a hand on the cover. Dean and Seamus stopped laughing. Neville trembled, slightly. Ron glared. Hermione gasped. Even the Slytherins looked less bored (especially the girls… though Blaise maintained his nonchalant demeanour).

"I must ask you not to scream," said Lockhart in a low voice. "It might provoke them."

He whipped off the cover of the cage with a dramatic flourish, revealing… tiny little electric blue creatures with mischievous faces. They way they were laughing maniacally and making faces at the students in the front row, Harry wondered if they were friends of Peeves' that Lockhart had managed to capture.

"Cornish. Pixies." Lockhart declared.

Seamus couldn't control himself. He let out a snort of laughter that even Lockhart couldn't mistake for a scream of terror. When Lockhart turned a mild smile on the boy, Harry wondered if he'd been a Slytherin in school – he certainly had the smug-and-superior smirk nailed perfectly.

"May I ask what you find so amusing?" Lockhart asked.

"Well they're not – they're not very – _dangerous, _are they?" Seamus choked through his laughter. "Look at them! They're so… _little_!"

Harry could imagine Su sniffing indignantly, and declaring that size had nothing to do with how dangerous a thing could be. She would probably look like an adorable little doll doing so, as well – a fact that he would never mention to her face.

"Don't be so sure!" Lockhart was saying, waggling a finger annoyingly at Seamus. "Devilish tricky little blighters they can be! In fact, let's see what you make of them… right. NOW!" He flicked open the door of the cage, and all hell broke loose.

The pixies shot in every direction like rockets. Two of them seized Neville by the ears and lifted him into the air, while Harry scrambled to rescue his friend – they were surprisingly strong little buggers, and he started firing stinging hexes at them… but his aim was off and another pixie was tugging painfully at his hair.

When he looked up again, Neville was hanging from the chandelier.

Several pixies had shot straight out the window, gone to cause general havoc and mayhem in the rest of the school. Harry hoped that the Weasley twins wouldn't be blamed for this particular incident.

(Su, meanwhile, was having a remarkably peaceful Potions class, having reached an unspoken arrangement with Snape in which neither acknowledged the other, but she performed excellently, and he gave her high grades. This was the arrangement that Harry and Neville followed too, only theirs included sour glares and the occasional looming presence behind them as they brewed.)

Within seconds the classroom looked as though it had been subjected to the presence of a rampaging rhino. Several of Lockhart's books had been torn to pieces (and a few pixies were wearing hastily crafted paper-hats… one with the moving face of a rather horrified Lockhart on it). Ink had been thrown everywhere, the bin had been upended, bags were tossed out the broken window, and half the class were hiding under their desks while Neville wrestled to untangle himself from the chandelier.

"Come on now — round them up, round them up, they're only pixies," Lockhart shouted. He rolled up his sleeves, brandished his wand, and bellowed, "_Peskipiksi Pesternomi_!"

It had absolutely no effect; one of the pixies seized his wand and threw it out of the window, too. Lockhart gulped and dived under his own desk, narrowly avoiding being squashed by Neville, who fell a second later as the chandelier gave way.

One of the pixies stole Harry's glasses, leaving him effectively blind. That was it. He was so fed up with this.

"_Petrificus Totalus!_" He shouted, pointing his wand at a blur of bright blue, which promptly plummeted to the ground, accompanied by the shrieking of pixies. "_Accio_ glasses!" They flew into his face, scratching his cheek, but at least he knew where they were, and he picked them up and jammed them onto his nose.

Neville, Dean, and Hermione seemed to catch on and follow suit pretty quickly, as did another Gryffindor girl… Fay? Fay Donavan… Dunlap… Dunbar! Harry mentally grimaced – it was kind of sad that he didn't know the names of his own classmates (especially the ones in his house); there weren't more than fifty students in his year anyway. He resolved to learn other names, and then resolved to improve his reflexes when a pixie ploughed into the back of him with a desk.

By the time the bell rang, the class had locked about a third of the pixies in fully body-binds, while the rest of them were roaming free in the castle. All males, and some females (Fay What's-Her-Name included) were rather disillusioned with Lockhart. Others (like Hermione) were still – somehow – singing his praises.

"Can you believe him?" Ron was asking loudly, as he stuffed the frozen pixies back into their cage.

"He just wants to give us some hands-on experience," Hermione insisted.

"Hands-on?" Ron gaped, and pointed at the fallen chandelier. "Neville nearly _died_." Hermione, he didn't have a clue what he was doing – his spell didn't even work!"

"Rubbish," Hermione sniffed. "You've read his books. He's very accomplished! Look at all those amazing things he's done!"

"Things he _says_ he's done," Ron muttered. Hermione harrumphed and stormed off.

Harry shook his head. He would never understand girls. Neville agreed.

* * *

"Ugh," Su grimaced at lunchtime, when told about Lockhart's Defence class. "Do you think I'd be able to skip? I mean, in muggle school, all you'd have to do was say, 'oh, I've got a cold, can I go to the Sick Bay?' but here, Madam Pomfrey fixes you up so quickly, it's hardly worth the effort! How on earth are we supposed to wag class here?"

"Wag?" Harry and Neville frowned at each other.

"Er, skive off? Sorry, phrases from home."

"Don't worry about it," Harry shrugged, knowing how uncomfortable Su felt talking about her life before… before being separated from her family. All three of them knew what it was like not to have parents – how it was to live as an orphan.

"We really should do something about your eyesight, anyway, Harry," Su went on, changing the subject. "I mean, what if your glasses fall off in the middle of battle?"

"Or in a Quidditch game?" Harry suggested. Su nodded. "When are we ever going to be in a battle, anyway?"

"I don't know, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared. I mean, Darth Volder's still out there. He's just a ghost, whatever, but what if he comes back? Even if we're all grown up, your bad eyesight will still be a disadvantage."

"Your paranoid, Su," Neville told her.

"Well, Quidditch then. I've got some runes drawn up, let's just go find Percy and get him to check them over, and then we can try to fix your eyes."

"Are you sure you should be doing this?" Neville asked, nervous. "I mean, medical spells are supposed to be really delicate. If you mess up, Harry could go blind."

"That's why I'm double-checking with everyone that I know," Su told him. "I tried Madam Pomfrey, but she doesn't know much about runes because she mostly works with potions and spells. Professor Babbling thinks that they look okay, but told me to go talk to Percy since he's also looking into fixing his own eyes."

"We'll talk to Percy," Harry decided. "But you can't fix my eyes until _I'm_ sure that it'll be okay."

"Fair enough," Su agreed. She peered down the Gryffindor table, but couldn't spot Percy anywhere. "Do you know where Percy is?"

"No," Harry looked as well. "But I think the twins can find him. We'll be back in a minute, Nev. Don't worry about us."

"Sure," Neville tucked into his food. Falling from light fixtures tended to build up his appetite.

"Hey Fred, George," Harry greeted the twins, who were plotting with Lee Jordan.

"Harry!" The twins pulled him down for a hug, and then dragged Su into it, too. "What can we do for you?"

"I was hoping you could use that map to find Percy. We need to ask him something."

"I thought we told you to keep that a secret," Fred arched an eyebrow at Su. Harry shrugged.

"Su's my best friend, and Neville already knows. We can keep secrets."

"I suppose," George nodded. "All right."

He pulled out the Marauder's Map, murmuring something below his breath. Su didn't bother telling him that she already knew how to work the map – it just didn't seem necessary.

"Aha! He's in a… broom closet? Oh, with Penelope Clearwater. What are they…?"

"Oh!" Fred interrupted his brother's thought. "So _that's_ who he's been writing on the sly all summer! Percy, mate, why didn't you _tell_ us you had a girlfriend?"

"Probably afraid we'd ruin his chances," George mused. "I mean, what woman could resist our devilish and dashing charm?" He struck a pose, and they all laughed.

"I guess we'll have to wait 'til dinner," Su sighed, as she and Harry walked back towards Neville. "Or you could take the runes and have him look them over when you meet him. If it all works out, hopefully we'd be able to fix your eyes tomorrow, otherwise we'll just have to use sticking charms on your glasses until I can find the right combination."

"Aren't there proper doctors for this?" Harry asked. Su blushed.

"Er, this is… um… something of an experiment," she admitted. Harry gaped. "Most wizards are pretty content with glasses and such but…" she sighed. "I suppose I am a little paranoid."

She stopped and put a hand on Harry's shoulder, looking him in the eye. She was so direct it almost scared him.

"I'm afraid," she told him, frank and serious. "Harry, you've just got a knack for getting yourself into dangerous situations, even if it's not on purpose. I mean; living with abusive relatives, Quidditch, Quirrell… you're my best friend, Harry. _I will not lose you_."

Harry wanted to tell her to calm down. He wanted to give her a hug and let her cry. He wanted to run away. He didn't know what he wanted.

It really was a relief when Su wandered away and sat at the Ravenclaw table.

* * *

They didn't manage to find Percy at dinner, and so Su left her notes on Rune combinations with Harry and Neville and went back to Ravenclaw tower to get a good night's rest. She had a brief, but interesting, conversation with Luna about nargles, which was more insightful than the few _Quibbler_ articles she'd read herself, and eventually she had tumbled into bed.

That night she had the Dream.

It hadn't haunted her for a few months now, not since the summer began, but now it was back… and so was the Girl.

In her Dream State she wandered around the Death Chamber, keeping to the edges of the room and not looking at the Veil. The Girl was in a corner, reading a book, which, on closer inspection, was _the Standard Book of Spells, Grade Two_.

"Where did you get that?" Su asked.

"The Library," the Girl shrugged.

"What library?" Su asked, looking around.

"The one in your head."

This made Su pause, and blink.

"_What_?"

"I'm in your head," the Girl continued mildly, reminding Su of Luna a great deal, but also much more frustrating. At least Luna would usually explain herself (somewhat) if asked. This Girl refused to say anything useful.

"Where have you been?" Su asked, though it wasn't what she had meant to say. "I haven't seen you all summer."

"Too close to the Veil," the Girl sighed, closing the book and looking up at Su with blue, blue eyes. "I'm not ready to go back. A second-hand life is still living… sort of."

"So… you're a ghost?" Su asked, wondering why the Girl was so talkative that night.

"No."

"Well, what are you?"

"I'm me."

"And who are you?" Su shouted, frustrated.

The Girl just walked away, around to the other side of the room, and when Su followed… the room was empty, and she was left alone in her Dream, and all the while the Veil whispered to her, sending shivers down her spine.

* * *

"Yes, yes this looks fair," Percy hummed, the next morning at breakfast, peering at the piece of paper Su had thrust under his nose. "Just swap these two around, no, these two. Yes. That should work. Do you want to try it now?"

"I'm not so sure," Harry grimaced.

"Perfectly understandable," Percy nodded. "Well, I could owl them to my friend at St. Mungo's if you'd like. Former Ravenclaw Prefect – Alexander Nott. He's bound to have some insights on how it might work."

"Okay," Su nodded, sighing. She'd really hoped to have Harry's eyes fixed as soon as possible, but – as she was learning – some things just took time. Like tracking down Ginny Weasley to get that diary, or figuring out a way to trick Ron out of his rat.

She supposed that she could get Harry or Neville to help out with that second, but then they'd want to know why, and she wasn't sure what she could tell them. What if she told them the truth, and they were angry with her for messing with their lives? What if they wanted to know how the story ends, and were angry with her when she couldn't tell them? What if, by befriending them, she had screwed up any chances of Harry ever defeating Voldemort and thus doomed the whole world? What if he _needed_ Ron and Hermione, and Su and Neville were just getting in the way?

Ugh.

"Hullo, Harry!" A small, mousy-haired first year popped up beside them, holding a camera. Su guessed that this might be Colin Creevey. "I've got that picture developed! Do you think… do you think you could sign it for me?"

"Giving out signed photos, Potter?" Malfoy sneered, passing by on his way to taunt his 'official' rival, Ron Weasley. Harry rolled his eyes. "Everyone line up! Harry Potter's giving out signed photographs!"

"This is a special favour, Malfoy," Harry retorted. "For a friend in Gryffindor," he ignored the way that Colin's smile stretched up the sides of his face. "If you'd wanted one, I'm afraid I'm all out. Next year, maybe."

"What's this about signed photographs?" Gilderoy Lockhart was striding towards them, resplendent in rose pink robes. Harry and Neville grimaced; Su clenched her fist, eager to join Harry in the 'People-Who-Have-Punched-Lockhart Club'.

"Harry, my boy! Shouldn't have asked," Harry's breath was knocked out of his lungs as Lockhart threw a far-too-friendly arm around his shoulders. Pinned to Lockhart's side and burning with humiliation, Harry saw Malfoy slide smirking back into the crowd.

"Come on then, Mr. Creevey," said Lockhart, beaming at Colin. "A double portrait, can't do better than that, and we'll both sign it for you."

Colin fumbled for his camera, but Harry stopped him, ducking out from under Lockhart's arm.

"You're mistaken, professor," Harry told him, voice cold. He saw Su marching towards them, fist clenched, and – with great reluctance – plucked at the back of her robes so that she wouldn't get a detention for assaulting a teacher. "Colin just wanted to send his parents a picture of himself and his friends. I agreed to sign it for his family so that they'd know my name, that's all."

Lockhart regarded him carefully, his bright smile rather stiff now. Ignoring Neville and Su, he put his arm around Harry again, and dragged him out of the Great Hall. Harry's friends exchanged alarmed glances, before dashing off after them – followed by Oliver Wood and the Weasley twins.

"A word to the wise, Harry," Lockhart whispered, somewhat amiably. "Let me just say that handing out signed pictures at this stage of your career isn't sensible – looks a tad bigheaded, Harry, to be frank. There may well come a time when, like me, you'll need to keep a stack handy wherever you go, but" – he gave a little chortle – "I don't think you're quite there yet."

Harry opened his mouth to protest – or perhaps say something pointedly scathing about how he'd never heard of Lockhart at all before that summer – but there arrived a very welcome interruption in the form of his Quidditch Captain.

"Oi! Get your hands off my Seeker!" Wood dashed forward, his long legs easily overtaking Neville and Su's following behind, flanked by the Weasley twins.

"Seeker?" Lockhart blinked. "Ah, yes, I do recall some mention of that in _the Prophet_…"

Harry ignored the slip that his school exploits were reported in the newspaper for some bizarre reason in favour of untangling himself from his Defence Professor and throwing himself in amongst his friends, with Wood standing protectively in front of him.

"Look, Professor," Wood continued, far more contrite now that his teammate was safe with friends. "I don't know what Malfoy said – but that kid's a troublemaker." He ignored the irony that his backup included the Weasley twins. "Harry's innocent, okay?"

"Innocent?" Lockhart laughed. "Oh, I wasn't punishing young Harry here," he indicated the boy in question, who was scowling at the familiar use of his name. Why was it that people who didn't know him always felt that they were the best of friends? "I was merely giving him some advice. Isn't that right, Harry?"

"Sure, professor," Harry shrugged. "I'll see you in class."

"Of course," Lockhart wandered off, and Harry and his friends let out great sighs of relief.

"Honestly," Fred grumbled, not so subtly checking Harry over for injuries – and also trying and failing to smooth down his hair. "What's that ponce trying to pull, anyway?"

"He was trying to tell me not to get a big head," Harry offered. "Thought I was trying to boost my fame or something."

His friends gaped at him, before bursting into laughter. They all knew how uncomfortable Harry felt about people staring at him just because of his scar. The idea that Harry would actively try to take advantage of his fame was… absurd.

"Well, so long as he stays harmless," Wood sighed. "I guess I'm just jumpy because of last year… that thing with Quirrell… I dunno if I'll ever be able to trust a Defence teacher ever again. I mean – there was that walking disaster in third-year, Barrow. Got lost in the Forbidden Forest for a month, wasn't the same after that. And first year there was that woman – Elsa Hollows – had an affair with some guy in Hogsmeade and eloped just before exams. I've no idea where Dumbledore keeps getting these people, but they're damn hopeless at their jobs. It's a wonder anyone's learned anything, last two decades, no Defence teacher's lasted more than a year around here."

"Why not?" Neville asked.

"A jinx or a curse or something, most people say," Wood shrugged.

"Can't they get a curse-breaker in?"

"Not in the budget," they jumped as another voice joined the conversation, turning around to see Cedric Diggory, the Hufflepuff Seeker, standing behind them. "My dad wanted to complain about the lack of staff when I joined Hogwarts – he's reasonably connected in the Ministry – but Hogwarts has barely got the budget to cover the staff we have. Can't afford a curse-breaker."

"It's because of the Conspiracy," a dreamy voice added. Luna Lovegood appeared at Su's shoulder. "Lead by Lucius Malfoy. He's planning to control the government through House Elves and withheld chocolate privileges and an infestation of wrackspurts."

"Why chocolate?" Cedric asked, a little dazed by Luna's eccentricity.

Luna looked at him very seriously. "Some people will do anything for chocolate." With that, she skipped away. Su noticed that she only had one shoe.

"Who was that?" George Weasley asked, blinking.

"Luna Lovegood," Su shrugged. "I like her. She's fun."

"If you say so," George remained dubious… or maybe he was trying to figure out how to incorporate Luna's bizarre nonchalance into some kind of prank. It was always difficult to tell, with the twins. "Did you find Percy, in the end?"

"We did," Su nodded. "He's sending the Runes to someone at St. Mungo's so that they can get a look at them and give me a Healer's opinion."

"What's this about?" Oliver asked.

"Harry's eyesight," Su explained. "I'm trying to find a Rune combination to fix them… that way if his glasses fall off in the middle of… a Quidditch match, there won't be any problems because he'll see just fine."

"I just wanted her to check with professionals," Harry raised an eyebrow at Su, who blushed guiltily, "before she tried any experiments on me."

Oliver nodded. "Good thinking, Harry. Smart."

"So where did you get that map?" Su dropped back to talk with the Weasley twins, as Harry, Oliver, and Neville walked back to the Great Hall to finish their breakfasts.

"Nicked it," George grinned.

"First year, from Filch's office," Fred added.

"Is it always right?" Su asked. "Does it show everything?"

"Well, we've never found any secret passages that weren't already on the map, if that's what you're asking," Fred told her. Su wondered if the Chamber of Secrets was on it. Probably not, if they never said anything to the teachers in canon.

"And it can always tell where people are? Even if they're using a disguise or something?"

"I guess so," George hummed. "We played Hide and Seek with Lee in second year a couple times. He's pretty clever, too, disguising himself and getting older students to do glamour charms… but yeah. It always knew that it was him."

"That's kind of cool," Su breathed, impressed and eager. She had an idea, now, of how to get at Pettigrew. "Can I see?"

"Sure," Fred grinned and whipped out the map. "_I solemnly swear that I am up to no good,_" the ink spread out across the parchment, creeping like a many-tentacled-thing until it became a map of Hogwarts. "Look – this is us, here."

"That's everyone else, in the Great Hall," Fred added. "There's Harry, and Neville, and ickle Ronnie-kin and his girlfriend…"

"Who's that?" Su asked, pointing at Peter Pettigrew's name. She knew that (for whatever bizarre reason) Ron was oddly attached to his rat, and tended to carry him around all over the place, including, apparently, to breakfast.

"Dunno," George admitted. "He's always around though, one of Ron's little friends."

"Can't be," Su told them, trying to hide her excitement. _If you can't do something yourself, set the Weasley twins on the trail_ – it wasn't really a proverb, but it worked well enough. "There's no one named Pettigrew in second year. Or first."

"Really?" George blinked. "Huh. I wonder what fussy britches big brother our little Ronnie's picked up now."

"Bet it's some Ravenclaw, looking for a rematch at Chess," Fred snickered.

"Or a Slytherin, trying to out-Malfoy the Little Dragon," George hummed.

They grinned at each other. "Let's investigate!"

They loped off to the Great Hall, leaving Su waiting in the Entrance Hall, knees shaking and breathing ragged.

_I hope this works,_ she thought. _I hope they get him. Or at the very least, flush him out. Wait. Oh crap – what if they tip Pettigrew off? What if he figures out that they're onto him! He was one of the people who _made_ the map. No! No, no, no! Dammit! _

She raced into the Hall after the twins, who were already pestering Ron… they had the map out, too. No! _Me and my big mouth_, Su berated herself.

But as she drew nearer the twins appeared more serious, still looking intently at the map.

"What's going on?" Ron asked, while spitting crumbs everywhere.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," Hermione snapped. Su arched an eyebrow, guessing that they'd probably had a spat about Lockhart. Already. Huh.

"You made any new friends lately?" George asked distractedly, looking at Ron and Hermione, between who there sat no one but Scabbers.

"With first years?" Ron pulled a face. "No. They're so small. And annoying. We were never that annoying, were we, Harry?"

Hermione snorted. Ron reddened.

"Maybe he's invisible," George frowned.

"Who's invisible?" Harry asked, thinking of his invisibility cloak, and of Dumbledore. But his invisibility cloak was hidden in a pair of giant hand-me-down socks from Dudley, and Dumbledore was sitting up at the High Table, eyes twinkling merrily.

"No one," George folded the map up crisply, tucking it into his pocket. "No one at all."

Both twins were looking very intently at the space between Ron and Hermione, while the Rat contentedly at his breakfast of eggs and bacon off the edges of Ron's plate.

Su breathed a sigh of relief. Pettigrew didn't know… _yet_.

* * *

Two weeks passed, and Su became increasingly anxious about the twins revealing to Pettigrew, even by accident, that they were aware of his presence. She resolved to get Nathan to owl her the book about Harry's family and history – including Sirius's supposed murder of _Peter Pettigrew_ – from home, and then show the twins and share her 'suspicions' with them.

She was so worried that she actually made herself ill – _oh god, I've just doomed the whole world. Pettigrew will resurrect Voldemort even sooner. Everyone will die – Sirius, and Harry, and Beatrice and Nathan… everyone. Harry will never know that there's someone out there – or a grownup out there, at least – who loves him, who could care for him better than the Dursleys…_

"Miss Li, are you quite all right?" Professor McGonagall demanded of her; as Su swayed in her seat, faint with the thought of the end of the world.

"I'm not feeling very well," she admitted. McGonagall levelled her with a sharp look.

"Off to the Hospital Wing, with you," she ushered her out of the classroom. "Miss Patil can take your books back to your dormitory. Mr Longbottom, please escort Miss Li to the Hospital Wing – see that she gets there safely."

"Yes, Professor," Neville mumbled, taking Su by the elbow as she stumbled out into the hallway. She was, at this point, looking quite green. "Are you all right, Su? You don't look very good."

"I don't feel very good, either," she admitted. She didn't elaborate. _Stomach in knots, no appetite, a paranoid fear that Darth Volder will be resurrected in two weeks and then will come and kill us all in our sleep…_

It was hard going, walking to the Hospital Wing, especially considering that Neville – while much improved from first year – was still also quite clumsy. They had a few near misses on the staircases, especially when they moved.

Eventually, however, they made it to the Hospital Wing.

"I'll be fine from here," Su assured him, as the lunch alarm went off (well, she said alarm… it was more as though the whole castle itself shook beneath their feet to let them know that the session had ended). "You go eat, and tell Harry that I'm okay. He looked pretty green himself when we were leaving."

"You know how much he worries," Neville smiled at her.

Su snorted.

"He seems to think that I'm delicate, or something."

Neville didn't deny it. Sometimes Harry worried – between that incident at Halloween last year, and that thing with Parkinson and Bulstrode, and Su's absent family, and her breakdown when they were kidnapped by Quirrell… not to mention her increasing paranoia that Harry would be in some kind of life threatening battle with Darth Volder at some point – they were really concerned about their friend.

Su was a bit mysterious. Sort of secretive. She'd say things, sometimes, that didn't really make much sense. And she was melancholy – distant and distracted, especially recently. Then there was that whole thing with the Veil, too…

Maybe the moodiness was a side effect of having been dead, once.

"I'll be back, later," Neville promised. "With Harry."

"Sure," Su grinned at him, and Neville walked off.

"Oh, you again?" Madam Pomfrey arched an eyebrow when Su walked into the Hospital Wing. She blushed, remembering her near-constant visits in first year, due to an absurd number of fall-related incidents connected to Pansy Parkinson and Millicent Bulstrode. "Well, I suppose it's well enough that you've kept yourself out of trouble for this long already. Come on in, I'm about to go out to lunch, so you be good, now."

It was fairly quick and easy. Madam Pomfrey cast a few diagnosis charms and looked at her seriously.

"Nightmares again? You're far too stressed, I told you to drink the Dreamless Sleep potion at least once a fortnight, have you done that?"

"The dreams stopped when I went home for the summer," Su tried to explain.

"They would have stayed stopped if you'd kept drinking the potion, too," Madam Pomfrey sniffed, pushing the bottle into Su's hands. "Now lie down and rest. Drink that tonight before you go to bed. It's no use worrying over something that isn't even real."

Su didn't protest, and soon enough, she was lying in one of the beds near Madam Pomfrey's office, curtains drawn, and staring up at the ceiling.

_She's right, I've got to calm down, _she thought. _I'll just get the twins onto Pettigrew's trail, tell them who he really is – keep Lockhart out of the way… I wonder if it's worth the effort to expose him as a fraud… get the diary off Ginny. Before Halloween… or maybe it can wait – Mrs Norris is a nightmare all her own… Who am I kidding? Being possessed by Voldemort is bad enough, I'll bet. No need for her to feel guilty about a cat… and some roosters, too, I guess. So: diary, rat, possibly Lockhart. _

_Deep breaths. That's all I need to do. Take deep breaths. _

The door creaked open, but Su didn't pay it any mind. It was probably Madam Pomfrey, back from her lunch break…

"Are you quite all right, Miss Allen?" Lockhart asked, voice loud and exaggerated.

"Not at all, Professor," Guinevere Allen, a seventh year Hufflepuff replied, equally loud and fake. "Why, I think I should go check Madam Pomfrey's office! To see if she's available to help me."

Su heard them shuffling towards her, heard the swishing of curtains and a lot of giggling.

"Are you sure she's not here?" Lockhart whispered, and she could almost hear the smirk in his voice.

"Absolutely," the Hufflepuff whispered back, still giggling girlishly. "She always has lunch at this time. We have, oh, about twenty minutes."

"Excellent."

The conversation ended, and Su heard a lot of grunting and giggling and moaning.

They weren't… they _weren't_, were they?

What if they were?

She was _twelve_! God, she couldn't be here!

_Escape, escape, escape, escape_, she thought to herself, scrambling out of bed. She stumbled a bit, dizzy from vertigo, but regained her balance and ducked out of the curtained-in space. She could see the vague shadows of Lockhart and Allen behind the curtains of the next bed over…

Distracted, she tripped over the edge of a curtain, and collapsed on the ground, pulling the curtain open and revealing Lockhart and Allen, lips glued together, robes ruffled, hands who-knows-where… Su gulped.

"Oh dear," Lockhart sighed, untangling his hands from the seventh year enough to pull out his wand. "This is quite awkward, now, isn't it?"

_Crap_.

* * *

**A/N:**_ Sorry that this took so long to write, guys! I've had a crazy few weeks. There's just been so much going on. _

_Anyway, the story moves on. I hope you enjoy it!_

_If you have any questions or opinions, I'd be glad to hear it - just review! It's not that hard._


	6. Something Wicked This Way Comes

**Author's Note:**_ Okay, to settle your worries - Su has not been _completely _obliviated... but there will be consequences to this action that will have repercussions later in the story. I don't really know if this will become a dark!fic, but it will probably darken as we go along, just like the stories did in canon - I will tell you now that I don't plan on letting Fred die... but other people might, eventually. I haven't decided yet. _

_At any rate, Su's increased paranoia will reflect the darkening (sort of) of this story. Not that canon wasn't plenty dark already at this point - I mean, a diary of a sixty-year-old Dark Lord possessing an impressionable eleven-year-old? That's pretty Dark. _

* * *

**~ Something Wicked This Way Comes ~**

Su blinked, feeling dizzy and hazy. Harry and Neville were leaning over her, faces creased with concern. Harry's 'pet' snitch, Leon, hovered overhead, and Harry must've gotten an older student to help him animate the painted face, because Leon also looked quite concerned (Su noticed that someone had also added glasses and a lightning-shaped scar to the drawn-on face. Huh).

"Are you okay?" Harry asked. "Neville wouldn't let me come up until we'd finished lunch, and I think we're skiving off class right now, only Madam Pomfrey winked at us…"

"I'm fine, Harry," she sighed; only she wasn't so sure. The last thing that she remembered was lying down on the bed… but her memory was hazy. Spotty, almost, and as she concentrated she realised that there _were pieces missing_.

Her horror must've shown on her face, because Harry's frown deepened, and Neville's grip on her hand tightened.

"What's wrong? Su, _talk_ to us. We know that something's going on, but we can't help you unless you tell us what it is."

_Pettigrew_, she thought, and she was relieved to know that she remembered that much. _And Tom Bloody Riddle's diary. I remember that, too… so what have I forgotten? _

She tried to remember, to search for the empty spaces in her head, but she didn't know how to, not really. She could _feel_ the absence of the memories, but not what those memories might be – and it was starting to scare her.

"Su?" Harry asked, and she tried to remember what the question was.

"Peter Pettigrew," she said at last, because _this_ was something that she could do. "Harry, that book about your family… about what happened to your parents and their friends… Peter Pettigrew's supposed to be dead."

"Supposed to be?" Harry repeated, frowning.

"The map – the Weasley twins' map. It has Pettigrew's name on it. Harry – _the map doesn't lie_." Her fingers twisted desperately in his robes, nails dogging into the skin of Harry's arm.

"So what does that mean?"

"It means that maybe Pettigrew isn't the hero people think he is. It means he's hiding from something. It means… it means he's here, somewhere, a friend of your parents that won't reveal himself even though the good guys won…"

Harry nodded. "It means that maybe he's one of the bad guys."

"I'll get you the book, and you can tell the twins… I think… I think he's been hanging around Ron, but I'm not sure… Don't mention it to Ron. I just… Harry."

"Su, calm down, just sleep, okay?" Harry pushed her into the pillows, and picked up the Dreamless Sleep potion. "We'll look into this," Neville nodded. "You don't have to worry so much."

Su opened her mouth to protest, but Harry pressed the potion bottle to her lips instead, and she soon fell fast asleep.

"Sly, Harry," Neville mused, looking down at their sleeping friend.

"I'm worried, Nev," Harry admitted. "She's keeping secrets from us. I mean – I know that everyone has secrets… but she's making herself sick. There's got to be something that we can do, right?"

"I dunno," Neville sighed. "I guess we can look into this Pettigrew bloke. Find out what's going on. We should tell the twins, too. They're pretty smart."

"We need someone to keep an eye on Su, too," Harry sighed, looking down at the sleeping girl. "She's… she has issues. I mean, we all do," he laughed, bitter and hard, "we're a ragtag pack of orphans. I just wish she trusted us more."

"Me too, Harry," Neville nodded, leading his friend out of the Hospital Wing. "Me too."

* * *

Severus Snape peered cautiously into the Hospital Wing, recalling Madam Pomfrey's warning him to be quiet for the sake of Miss Li. He remembered his previous hospital encounter with the girl in her first year, and did not want a repeat.

He didn't know how to handle her.

It was a relief, therefore, when as he looked into the room, a small, slight first-year – Lovegood, he thought – blinked at him and smiled. "She's asleep."

Thank goodness.

Nodding curtly at the first year with her oddly protuberant eyes, Snape strode quickly into the Hospital Wing to restock the potions shelves, thinking that he would have to find a way to use a student for these time-wasting errands at some point instead.

"You should be careful, you know," Lovegood said, startling him. When he turned around he almost had a heart attack, as the girl had appeared quite suddenly at his elbow. "The nargles are gathering. You know what that means."

"What?" Snape snarled.

Lovegood blinked – and honestly, her calmness was more infuriating than any Slytherin's sneer. No wonder she had no friends.

"_Something Wicked This Way Comes_, by Demelza Hoopstutter: Nargles are attracted to trouble. And mistletoe, of course. But mostly trouble. Your cloak is infested with them – I think you should do something about that."

"Miss Lovegood," Snape sneered, pulling himself to his full height so that he towered over the girl. "Whatever you are talking about… please kindly keep it to yourself. I don't have time for your nonsense."

"If you say so," Lovegood shrugged and, humming, skipped back to Li's bedside.

Snape watched the girl, and shivered. There was just something so _clear_ about his eyes… it frightened him. He made a mental note to keep a wide birth of girls whose surnames began with an L, and strode out of the Hospital Wing, robes billowing more than usual. It made him feel safer.

"Snape's so jumpy," Su murmured sleepily, watching the Potions Master sweeping out the doors. "Maybe he's just not fond of hospitals."

"Maybe," Luna agreed, and continued work on a butterbeer charm necklace for her first – and so far only – friend. "Thank you for these shrunken butterbeers, by the way. They're much better at attracting nargles than the corks."

"I thought you said that they repelled nargles," Su frowned glancing sidelong at her friend. Luna simply smiled dreamily, but there was a decidedly Slytherin flash in her eyes.

"Oh, did I? Perhaps. Trouble _does_ make one's life interesting," she mused.

"If you know how to handle it," Su sighed.

"You don't really need the charm anyway," Luna hummed, threading the butterbeer pendant onto a simple silver chain. "You're a nargle attractor all on your own. It's because of Her, you know."

"Who?"

"You know," Luna looked at Su so seriously that the older girl began to wonder if the younger really did know about the Dreams. "I don't know how you attracted Her, but if you look at things in the right way, you can always see the signs."

"Signs? What signs?"

"That you've fallen victim to the Conspiracy, of course," Luna huffed. "Honestly Su – can you remember the last time that you had chocolate?"

Su shook her head.

"The chocolate withdrawals have made the way for Her to attach Herself to you. You know that the only way to deal with Moon Spirits is to eat chocolate? It works with the after effects of Dementors and encounters with werewolves, too."

"Moon Spirits," Su mumbled. "Right, of course. Remind me to eat chocolate at dinner tonight, please, Luna."

"Remember to eat chocolate at dinner tonight, Su," Luna sang, dropping the butterbeer necklace over her friend's head and skipping away.

Su sighed. Sometimes, she really didn't understand that girl.

Blaise came to visit next, muttering unkind things about 'Potter and Longbottom' for not telling him about her 'situation' – he'd heard second hand from Padma when he'd approached the other Ravenclaw for Su's location.

"You're more hospital-prone than Longbottom," he informed her. "That's quite a feat."

"It's settled now," Su assured him. She had a Plan. As for the diary… well, she still had until Halloween before the first attack, right? She just needed to get the damn thing off Ginny Weasley and second year would run smoothly. So would third, now that she thought of it, if Sirius Black was freed instead of having to escape.

"You worry me," Blaise frowned, but he was gentle when he took her hand in his.

"Blaise," she whispered, and he looked at her and she smiled. "I'm very glad that you're my friend."

He snorted. "You'd better be," and he leaned forward and kissed her forehead. "Stop getting into trouble, okay? I don't know what to do with you except for smothering you in cushioning charms."

"Luna says that I attract trouble because of a chocolate deficiency," Su hummed.

Blaise rolled his eyes. "I think I will have to meet this Luna, and invite her with me to visit the psych ward in St. Mungo's."

"Oh, nonsense," Su swatted his arm tiredly. "She's nice. And a Ravenclaw. Ravenclaws can't be mad – we're too clever for that."

"That's what Slytherin's say," Blaise mused.

"Touché, Blaise, touché."

Harry and Neville arrived soon after dinner, bringing with them an entire entourage of concerned friends, including Oliver, the Weasley twins, Padma, Ron, Hermione, and Colin Creevey.

"I am feeling overwhelmed by all the lions in the house," Blaise drawled.

"Oh, shut it," Harry rolled his eyes, punching the Slytherin gently in the arm. "You're here for Su, we all know it."

"She might as well be an honorary lion as well, then," Blaise hummed.

"Nonsense," the girl in question snorted. "I've already told you. I look better in blue."

Blaise laughed. "Get better soon, okay?" She nodded, and he kissed her on the forehead again, smirking at the protective glares sent his way by Wood and the Weasley twins, before making his way out of the Hospital Wing.

"Su, have you met Colin Creevey, yet?" Harry asked, bringing the excitable Gryffindor first-year towards her. Su shook her head, and then shook Colin's hand.

"Hello," Colin breathed. "You're Su Li! I've heard about you! The other kids – they told me about what happened last year – and you helped Harry to defeat a dragon! And a giant! And the ghost of You-Know-Who!"

Su laughed. "What on earth do they _say_ about us in Gryffindor?" She asked Neville, who blushed, and shrugged. "There were no dragons, Colin," she said, thinking, _I made sure of that_, "and no giants. The ghost of Darth Volder… sort of. Maybe."

Oliver let out a long, low whistle, putting his hand on Su's forehead and sweeping the hair away from her face. "Tough luck, kiddo," he murmured.

Padma, on the other hand, squeezed through the thick ranks of boys in order to leap upon her friend and hug her tightly. "Are you okay?" She asked.

"I'm all right," Su murmured. "Just a bit tired, that's all."

"It's not the nightmares again, is it?" Padma asked, and Su flinched, remembering that among all her friends, Padma was the only one who shared a dorm with her, and knew about her restless nights.

"No," she said, not looking Padma in the eye. "It's not the nightmares." And it wasn't – it really wasn't – but she felt uncomfortable under her friend's scrutiny all the same.

"So you're Colin Creevey, are you?" Su turned back to the wide-eyed first year. "Harry's told me about you. You want to be a hero, don't you?"

Colin nodded, his head bobbing so hard Su was almost afraid it would fall off.

"Like Harry!" He exclaimed, pulling a photograph out of his pocket, while Harry blushed behind him. The photo contained a grinning Colin, waving out of the picture and grinning delightedly at a rather more reserved Harry, who waved and smiled, but with markedly less enthusiasm. "Look, he even signed it!"

"That's nice," Su hummed, looking up at Harry and smiling at him. Harry blushed further, and shrugged. Colin didn't notice the exchange. "Do you know what it means to be a hero, Colin?" She asked mildly, and Colin opened his mouth to reply, but couldn't find the words, and shrugged.

"It means looking out for the people that nobody else does," she murmured, thinking of Luna, and Neville, and even Harry himself. She thought of Ginny, and Sirius Black, and Cedric Diggory, and Mad-Eye Moody and even Percy Weasley who was so unlike his brothers. "Can you think of anyone who might need a friend? Someone to take care of them and support them?"

Colin hummed as he thought, tucking the photograph of himself and Harry back into his pocket. "There's a girl in my year – Ginny Weasley – she doesn't really have many friends. She's always writing in her diary," Su bit her tongue so that she wouldn't gasp, "and she doesn't really talk to anyone much."

Su ignored the Weasley boys – the twins looking concerned and Ron looking outraged while Hermione put a hand on his arm – and smiled at Colin.

"I think that befriending Ginny would be an excellent first step for a hero, don't you?" She looked over at Harry. "Every hero needs friends." He grinned at her, still blushing, and Colin beamed at her.

"That's a great idea!" He exclaimed. "Thank you!"

Su found herself being smothered in another hug – while Padma yelped from being jostled off the bed – with Colin's mousy hair rubbing against her nose.

"All right, kid," Oliver gently peeled the first year off the Ravenclaw. "That's enough of that. Su needs to rest and recover. We'd better get out of here before Madam Pomfrey hexes us for trying to kill one of her patients."

He winked at Su, ruffling her hair as he walked away. There was a line as everyone else hugged her or kissed her forehead or ruffled her hair, and soon she was left alone with Harry and Neville – Colin having been dragged off by the Weasley twins.

"I would never trade you for the world," she whispered, reaching her arms out to grab both boys in an awkward group hug. "You're my best friends. Nothing will ever change that. I'm so glad to have you both."

"Me too," Harry murmured into her hair.

"Me three," Neville agreed.

_I won't let anyone get hurt,_ Su thought fiercely. _Not Neville, or Harry, or Colin, or the twins, or anybody. Look out Darth Mouldy-Shorts. I'm going to get your stupid diary. Wait and see. And without precious Pettigrew, you won't be able to resurrect, either._

* * *

Su was up and about the next day, much to Harry's relief. She was quieter than he remembered, but she'd never been particularly loud, either, so he let it slide.

At the moment he was simply struggling to keep on top of his homework as well as Oliver's rigorous Quidditch training schedule, which saw the Gryffindor Quidditch team waking up at unspeakably ungodly hours no matter the weather… in fact, in Wood's opinion, the rainier it was, the better, because they'd be better prepared for undesirable weather than any other team at Hogwarts.

Harry loved flying – he really did – Quidditch was a wonderful sport and he thought that if he had the opportunity, he'd pursue a professional career. Right now, however, he was twelve years old. Right now, he just wanted sleep.

And so it was, on one particular Saturday, when Oliver snuck into his room Harry groaned and punched the elder student. The punch only landed on Wood's burly shoulder, though, so the Captain remained unfazed.

"Come on, Potter," Wood chirped, disgustingly cheery so early on a Saturday morning. "Quidditch training! Up, up, up you get!"

"I hate you," Harry moaned, but he rolled out of bed all the same.

He and Oliver trotted down the stairs, almost tripping over Colin when he darted out of the first-year dorms.

"Harry, are you going off to Quidditch practice?" Colin asked, wide-eyed.

"Mmm-hmmm," Harry mumbled, not awake enough for coherent sentences.

"Can I– can I take photos? For my dad? He doesn't believe that we really fly around on brooms, you know, so I thought…"

"Sure, sure," Wood waved a careless hand. "If you take photos of the whole team, I can help you write out all the rules and roles of Quidditch."

"Really?" Colin beamed and Oliver grinned.

"Really," Harry mumbled. "In fact, in the wizarding world, Quidditch players are heroes just as much as I am. More, even, 'cause they actually do stuff. Wood's gonna be a Keeper for Puddlemere United as soon as he graduates."

Oliver blushed, but he was also grinning so widely that his face threatened to split in half.

"Thanks Harry," he said, ruffling the second-year's hair. "Get dressed, Colin, real quick now, and we'll all rush off to the Quidditch Pitch."

Colin nodded, eyes bright, and as he dashed into his room Harry wondered what on earth happened to the first year that he was up this monstrously early.

_Oh yeah. His dad's a milkman. Poor kid's probably been up for hours_.

Harry resigned himself to answering Colin's questions as they made their way to the Quidditch Pitch with the rest of the team. Yes, he was the youngest Seeker in a century. Yes, he was a fairly decent flier. No, flying wasn't so hard. Yes, a _Nimbus 2000_ was a really good broom, but there were different types of brooms for different things, so he wouldn't say it was necessarily _the best_.

He decided that Colin Creevey and Nathan Li would get along phenomenally well.

"Do you bake, Colin?" He asked, startling the first year.

"I do, actually!" Colin exclaimed excitedly. "I'm really good at making pies!"

This was actually so like Nathan Li, that Harry was laughing until he cried. Colin had no idea what was going on, but Harry assured him that he was only laughing because Colin reminded him greatly of another friend that he had.

"Yes, Colin," Harry rolled his eyes. "I'll introduce you."

"All right, Colin," Wood grinned. "You can come sit with us in the changing room. Only if you promise to be quiet, though."

Colin nodded eagerly, and Harry wondered if it was physically possible for Colin Creevey to be quiet. He certainly hoped so.

They arrived at the changing room and discovered – to no one's surprise – that Oliver was the only team member actually awake (oh, and Colin was there, too). Fred and George were puffy-eyed and tousle-haired next to their classmate, Alicia Spinnet, who seemed to be drooling on George's shoulder. Angelina and Katie weren't doing much better, yawning on the bench opposite the three fourth-years.

Once they were all gathered, Wood launched into a lecture about all the new plays he had devised over the summer, illustrating each of them in painstaking detail on a board. The lecture took two hours, and by the end of it, Harry was snoozing soundly on Katie Bell's shoulder and dreaming of treacle tart.

"So," said Wood, at long last, and Harry jolted awake when Katie suddenly straightened to attention. "Is that clear? Any questions?"

"I've got a question," Fred yawned. "Why couldn't you have told us all this last night, when we were actually awake?"

Wood huffed in response. "Now listen here, you lot," he said, glowering at the team. "We should have won the Quidditch cup last year. We're easily the best team. But, unfortunately, owing to circumstances beyond our control," Harry pointedly avoided looking Oliver in the eye, "we were smashed in that last game against Ravenclaw."

He paused, swallowing; the pain of losing that game was still raw. Harry loved Quidditch – he really did – but it was nothing compared to the passion that Oliver Wood had for the game. It was at once annoying and endearing, though at this point more annoying than endearing, mostly because he really, _really_ wanted breakfast right now.

Eventually, after another twenty-minute lecture about the importance of training for the year, and an 'inspiring speech' about how Gryffindor would be winning the Quidditch cup that year, Oliver finally set them to doing the actual training part of their early-morning training.

Colin followed them out onto the field, his camera hanging about his neck. Harry couldn't see Neville or Su anywhere and could only assume that they were enjoying their breakfast without him.

He wasn't sulking, okay? He just wasn't.

Trouble began brewing when the Slytherin Quidditch team stepped onto the pitch.

"But I booked the pitch for today," Wood growled, angling his broom to intercept the green-robed boys on the ground. He staggered lightly as he landed, having rushed too much in his anger. Harry, Fred, and George followed, having spotted the team while the three chasers remained unaware in the air.

The Slytherins were smirking as the four Gryffindors approached.

Harry later recounted the whole story to Su and Neville while he enjoyed a late breakfast in the kitchens where some very kind house elves – not including that crazy one that attacked him during the summer – even offered him treacle tart.

The Slytherins had claimed that they had a right to the pitch in order to get their new Seeker up to date. Su hadn't appeared at all surprised when he mentioned that said new Seeker was Draco Malfoy. Harry guessed that Blaise must've told her earlier.

Both teams had made disparaging comments, but all hell broke loose when Malfoy insulted the Weasleys on every level that he could think of – from their ancient ancestors, to their parents… to their baby sister.

Ginny had been the final straw, and neither Harry nor Oliver was particularly inclined to hold them back when they began hexing everyone wearing green. Draco began throwing up slugs, and apparently wouldn't stop for several hours. Various other members of the Slytherin Quidditch team ended up decorated with pig snouts, extra fingers, a well-executed bat-bogey hex, and quite a few leg-locker curses.

Snape had swept onto the field, sneering at the state of his Quidditch team, and had given the entire Gryffindor team – and Colin Creevey, who was happily photographing the whole thing whilst occasionally kicking Malfoy when he got too close – detentions.

"Worth it," Harry said finally, thinking about how appropriate it had seemed for the twins to transfigure Flint's head into the likeness of a troll – it hadn't been difficult, there was a lot of resemblance between the two – while Neville and Su were gasping with laughter on the ground, unable to even breathe for mirth.

"I hope Colin will share those pictures," Su grinned.

"Or Harry could give us the pensieve memory," Neville added.

"I just wonder what Malfoy's like as Seeker," Harry admitted, when they'd calmed down a bit. "I mean – he was pretty good last year, in the lessons. But I don't know how he flies – what if he's really good?"

"I doubt that he's as good as you," Su waved a dismissive hand. "You're some kind of prodigy, after all, Harry. Just do your best, okay?"

"If you say so," Harry sighed.

"I think I could badger Madam Locke into getting us Quidditch tickets in the summer," Su mused. "If you wanted to see a professional at work."

"Puddlemere United?" Harry asked, perking up.

Neville laughed. "Oliver's gotten to you, hasn't he?"

Harry blushed, and shrugged. "Maybe."

"We'll see, Harry," Su served herself another treacle tart. "We'll see."

* * *

Later that night, when everyone else had gone to bed, Harry took a shower, washing all the grime of the day off his back. He'd showered after Quidditch practice, of course, but the rest of the day he'd spent with Neville and Su, visiting Hagrid and then helping Professor Sprout weed in some of the greenhouses (Neville's idea).

Through the hiss of hot water hitting his shoulders, Harry imagined that he could hear another voice, low and sinister, echoing in his ears.

_"Come… come to me… let me rip you… tear you… let me kill you…" _

"I'm more tired than I thought," Harry groaned. He went to bed and didn't think on the mysterious voice any more.

* * *

October arrived, and Su was growing more and more anxious.

The Weasley twins were looking shifty and suspicious, but they hadn't mentioned Pettigrew to her yet. She wished they'd hurry up and catch the damn rat…

More to the point, Halloween was approaching, and she'd still been unable to get the diary off Ginny. She spoke to the shy first year occasionally – but almost always in public; at lunch or dinner, or running into her in a hallway on the way to class.

Definitely not ideal locations to steal someone's most precious and private diary.

"You're stressed," Luna mused, as Su scribbled plans and then scribbled them out again on a piece of spare parchment. "Here, have some chocolate."

"You really like chocolate, don't you?" Su murmured, shoving the offered sweet into her mouth. Huh – she actually _did_ feel better. Go figure.

"Chocolate makes people happy," Luna hummed. "Happy people are less prone to throwing themselves into trouble – thus, nargle-repellent."

"I like the way you think, Luna," Su told the other girl seriously. She ignored the odd looks she was receiving for sitting with the eccentric Ravenclaw. Even Padma gave Luna a wide berth saying –

"She gives me the willies. Like she can look right into your soul."

Well, Luna _was_ rather frighteningly insightful, but Su supposed that her honorary-Gryffindor side was more prepared to brave Luna's oddities than he coolly observant Ravenclaw side. Another thing that put most Ravenclaws off Luna Lovegood was that she couldn't be categorised properly – couldn't be judged – Ravenclaws were rather like Slytherins in that they liked to know exactly where another person fit into their world view, and when confronted by someone as spectacularly odd as Luna Lovegood, they simply did not know what to do with her.

And a Ravenclaw that does not understand something can sometimes overreact to it.

At any rate – the result of Luna's oddness was that only Su was really willing to sit by her, which was sort of sad, when she considered it. Maybe she'd encourage Luna to go and befriend Colin and Ginny – who reportedly got along quite well now, and may have even started that Harry Potter Fan Club that Ron had suggested. It would do Luna good to have friends in her own year…

"You've got your thinking-dimple on," Luna told her absently. Su blinked.

"Pardon?"

"Your thinking-dimple," Luna pointed to a spot just between her own eyebrows. "There's a little dimple here, when you think. Blaise Zabini thinks that it's adorable."

"How do you know that Blaise thinks that my, er, 'thinking-dimple' is adorable?" Su asked, trying very, very hard not to blush.

Luna tilted her head, looking very directly at Su – and yeah, she could see why such a direct gaze gave Padma the willies. Luna's silvery eyes were certainly a little unsettling.

"He said so. When he was talking to Harry and Neville," Luna picked up a piece of toast and decorated it with oranges and grapes. Su would never understand that girl. "Harry and Neville thought that you were getting better, but Zabini knows that you're not. He can see the dimple – and he told them that it was adorable."

Su frowned, ignoring Luna's happy chirp of – "See! Dimple!" – Blaise Zabini thought she was adorable? No, wait, she didn't have time to be distracted by things like that, she needed to think of some way to get that diary off Ginny Weasley…

In the end, it had turned out to be much simpler than she could have imagined. She had asked Colin to befriend Luna, and had been invited to join himself, Ginny, and the eccentric Ravenclaw in the library to help tutor them in first-year Potions.

Ginny, when not rendered hopelessly shy from Harry's presence, was still quiet, but also pleasant to talk to, and Su wondered if it was Riddle's fault that the girl didn't have more friends. When she sent the three first-years on the hunt for a book by Deimos Black that would help them with their potions study, she quickly rifled through Ginny's book bag and found the diary.

It was so plain – black leather, with the name 'T.M. Riddle' impressed on the front of it. All the pages were empty. It looked so innocuous. How could something so simple be the source of so much terror?

Su tucked the diary into her own bag, and nervously avoided looking Ginny in the eye for the rest of the tutoring session, in which Ginny was bemused by Luna, but Colin got along surprisingly well with the Ravenclaw.

The diary burned a hole in her side as the bag knocked against her thigh when she ran all the way up to the tower. She closed the curtains of her four-poster bed and pulled it out, looking at the container of the 'memory' of sixteen-year-old Voldemort.

It couldn't be that easy, could it?

* * *

**A/N: **_So... this chapter didn't turn out the way that I expected - which is not necessarily a bad thing. There's a lot of friendly fluff and character development, and I'm actually becoming quite fond of Colin, though I didn't pay much attention to him in the books. _

_I had intended for Su to be tortured by paranoia for a bit longer in this chapter, but that didn't really fit well with the pace that I wanted for the plot. I'm thinking of getting to Pettigrew in the next chapter, so look forward to that. _

_On a side note - raise your hands if you think that Su has really quashed all problems for second year. Keep in mind, she and Harry are nargle-attractors of the worst degree! Review and let me know what you think! Thank you!_


	7. Ratting Out the Rat

**Author's Note:** _I'm back! I'm sorry it took so long to update. I'm a little bogged down by school at the moment, but I'm trying. I really am._

_So the diary is seemingly-taken care of, but we already know how tricky Horcrux-Voldemort can be. He's as bad as the One Ring that way, so whether or not he continues to be trouble will remain to be seen._

_For now, we have a Rat to catch, a Luna to love, and plots to play with - enjoy!_

* * *

**~ Ratting Out the Rat ~**

Harry was becoming increasingly frustrated. He had told the Weasley twins what Su had discovered about Pettigrew – they'd read all about Sirius Black betraying his parents and then chasing after Pettigrew to kill him… but if Pettigrew was alive, then Sirius was innocent of the crime that had sent him to Azkaban.

Additionally, he just didn't understand Black's motivations. He'd spoken to Blaise about it – when he'd had the time – and learned that Black had completely rejected everything that his family stood for, including the Dark Arts, Blood Supremacy, and even Slytherin superiority, going so far as to abandon his home and family – or was possibly evicted – and went to live with James Potter instead.

Harry tried to imagine Neville ever betraying him as Sirius Black had betrayed his father, and found that he couldn't, in any way, imagine that it was possible. Likewise he could not imagine how one of the most fervent, violent, and vocal anti-Voldemort characters could possibly have been a double agent the whole time.

Surely a true double agent would have toed the line – made themselves invisible and small and seemingly insignificant instead of openly killing and incapacitating as many Death Eaters as they could get their hands on. Nothing was adding up.

Unfortunately, Oliver had Harry and the twins bogged down with Quidditch training at every available minute of the day. As much as he admired his Captain, Harry was seriously considering putting the sixth-year in the hospital wing, just to get a break.

Neville himself was also too busy to really investigate the Pettigrew thing, between catching up with homework, keeping an eye on Su – who was becoming increasingly paranoid – and helping Professor Sprout in her greenhouses every other afternoon, no progress was being made, and the mystery was constantly nagging at Harry's mind.

He scowled at his feet as he trudged back up to Hogwarts from Quidditch training, irritably batting Leon-the-pet-Snitch out of his face.

"Hello, Harry Potter," came a dreamy voice to his left, as he stalked down a – mostly – abandoned corridor. Everyone else was at dinner, and he was starving. He blinked at the girl that had suddenly appeared, wracking his brain for her name. Loony or Moony or something like that, right? Lovegood. Yes, Lovegood. Luna Lovegood. Su's friend.

"Hello, er, Lovegood," Harry replied, even as the whimsical girl skipped merrily alongside him. "What are you doing out here?"

"I'm looking for my shoes," she hummed, pointing down at her bare feet, her toes slightly blue from the cold. "Most of them have gone missing, you see." She leaned towards him conspiratorially. "I suspect nargles are behind it."

"Is that so?" Harry hummed, remembering a rather odd conversation about nargles with Su, about how they were attracted to trouble. "Most of the time nargles just like to put me in the hospital wing, I think."

Luna nodded sagely. "They do like a bit of variance," she agreed. "If you see my shoes, do let me know, Harry Potter. Here, this is what they look like." She handed him a list of shoes and accompanying pictures, some ordinary, and some outlandish. He could have sworn that in amongst the list there was a pair of shoes decorated with wings.

"I'll keep an eye out," he promised. Luna beamed at him.

"Thank you," she said, before looking more closely at him. He noticed that her eyes were very bright, a pale silvery-blue that seemed to almost glow in the dim light. "Something is troubling you, isn't it? You're worried about something."

"Not really," Harry shrugged, his response automatic. Leon's buzzing wings tickled his ear, and he pushed it away again.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Luna asked, her whimsical expression becoming less dreamy and more focused. She stopped skipping and looked at Harry, who was standing in the middle of the corridor. "I can listen, if you like."

Harry sighed and rubbed his scar. "Er, I've just got a lot on my mind. You know, Quidditch and all." Luna just nodded, but she didn't stop looking at him. Harry let out a huff of air and kept walking, Luna following alongside him.

"Well, I'm worried about Su. She's… she's not well. Pale. Jumpy. I can understand her feelings – whenever Lockhart wears purple I just want to run away… well, I mean, I always want to run away from Lockhart 'cause he's a wanker, but the reasons are a bit different. I just… I just want to help her. And then there's this– this _thing_. With Pettigrew – and my godfather in Azkaban who is actually probably innocent - but I don't know how to prove it and I don't have time to find out because I always have Quidditch on and it's just really frustrating!"

Luna hummed, before reaching out and tugging Harry down so that she could wrap her arms around him and give him a hug. Her hair smelt like vanilla and caramel, and her hug was very warm in spite of her skin being cold – and he made a mental note to get others to help him find her shoes – and Harry found himself relaxing, although he didn't really understand why.

"It'll be all right, Harry," Luna promised. "You've got good friends. They'll look out for you. Like this one, it's being very comforting."

She pulled back from the hug, and saw that Leon was hovering happily by Luna's cheek, and playing with one of her radish earrings.

"I call it Leon," Harry told her, and he was surprised that the little snitch came up and nudged against his face, it's own expression happily animated.

"It likes you," Luna informed him serenely.

"How can it like me? It's just a snitch."

Luna held up her hands, and the snitch fluttered towards her before dropping into her open palms. "Magic is a very curious thing. Even we, as wizards who have been studying it for many centuries, don't fully understand it. Sometimes, if we invest enough magic, or emotion, or thought into something, it can take on a life of its own. Bigger things, like Hogwarts, take longer, but little things, like your Leon, are quick to pick up on the way that you treat them."

She held her hands up again, and Leon fluttered out and then settled to hover over Harry's left shoulder. "You treat the snitch like it's a pet, and so it acts like one. Your magic must be quite powerful, Harry, for it to like you so quickly."

"Huh," Harry reached up and, er, 'patted' the snitch gently. "I didn't know that."

"Hmmm," Luna shrugged as they neared the great hall. "Well I hope you catch that rat Pettigrew, he sounds unpleasant. I hope there's pudding." She strode away from him, joining Su at the Ravenclaw table, and Harry was so bemused by Luna's… oddness that it took him a moment to regain his senses and wave back at Su.

_Rat_… he thought, remembering Luna's words. What if Pettigrew wasn't invisible? He knew that McGonagall could turn into a cat… but other wizards could change shape as well! How could he be sure though?

He sat next to Neville, grunting absentmindedly when his best friend greeted him, and shovelling food onto his plate. How would this work, then? How could he find out without Ron getting suspicious? It's not like he could just go up to the boy and say –

"Hey, mate, I think that your rat is actually a dead war hero that's secretly alive and also a former Death Eater. I need to borrow him permanently so that I can free my probably crazy but still innocent godfather from prison. Thanks a lot."

Yeah. No. That wasn't going to work.

He scowled at his plate, glancing sidelong at Ron and his stupid rat. He didn't even know if Pettigrew really was a rat. Maybe he was a flea, on the rat? Maybe _Ron_ was Pettigrew, and the rat was the real Ron Weasley held prisoner? Maybe Pettigrew wasn't like McGonagall at all, and he was speculating about the rat for no reason at all?

Ugh.

"You all right, Harry?" Neville asked, nudging him and jolting him out of his thoughts.

"Yeah, fine," Harry sighed, turning his attention back to his meal. "I'm just thinking about… our invisible friend." They both glanced briefly at Ron, and then at the twins, who were looking intently at their little brother. Leon danced around Neville's ear.

"He can't be invisible all the time," Neville reasoned. "We just need to catch him when he's visible. Exposed. Only… we've got class all the time, so…"

"We need a spy," Harry nodded, mind whirring. Leon floated into his face, smacking into his glasses, and this time Harry caught the snitch and grinned. "And I know just how to do it. Remember the twins Spyders, from last year?"

"Kind of hard to forget," Neville grinned, glancing at Pansy Parkinson at the Slytherin table, remembering how she tried to run out of the Great Hall wearing swimming flippers. Ah, good memories.

"We can get them to charm Leon the same way," Harry held out the snitch, curled up in his palm. "And some kind of invisibility, or notice-me-not charm, too. Then Leon can spy and we'll be able to figure out what's going on!"

"How will we get it to follow the right person, though?" Neville frowned. He glanced around to see if anyone was watching, and lowered his voice. "If we set it to follow Ron, we might not get anything. It's not like Pettigrew's going to show himself in front of a student. Besides, Leon's supposed to follow _you_ around."

"The twins are smart," Harry shrugged. "So is Su. If we can look at the tracking charm on the map, and get Leon to follow the right name…"

"You know what, Harry?" Neville grinned, dinner forgotten. "I think that this is possibly the best idea you've ever had."

"I try," Harry beamed back.

* * *

"Harry you're brilliant!" Su squealed, throwing her arms around her best friend and planting a wet, smacking kiss on his cheek. "Genius, absolute genius! And we can use to the footage as evidence in court… I think. I'm pretty sure. We can try, at least."

"Yeah, sure," Harry pushed her away, wiping his cheek and grimacing. Su just laughed. He was happy with that at least, she was looking more alive than she had in a few weeks – less stressed.

Su might joke about his thinking that she was delicate, but she _was_ a girl, and girls were emotionally fragile – Lavender Brown said so. It wasn't a bad thing for him to worry about his friends, especially since he had never had many, and Su and Neville were the most important people in his life.

"So you think it will work?"

"I do. I'll look into disillusionment charms with Hermione – she'll think it's for out undetectably-extended bags."

"You're still working on that?" Neville asked. Su looked shocked that he asked.

"Of course!" She didn't tell them that she was planning on stocking her charmed pouch with medical supplies, her broom, her spare wand, and other assorted useful items. It wouldn't do for them to think her paranoid. '_Constant vigilance'_ becoming her mental mantra didn't have any particular significance… and if she could prevent the rise of snake-face-Voldemort, well, then it wouldn't matter if she was paranoid or not anyway, would it?

"Where're the twins?" Neville asked, glancing at his pocket watch. "They said they'd be here."

Harry peered out from behind the mirror that hid the caved in secret passage to Hogsmeade that the twins had told them about. He wasn't worried about being seen, wearing his invisibility cloak draped over his head, but he _was_ worried about the twins. He really wanted to get this done as quickly as possible.

The more he learned about his godfather, the more convinced he felt that the man was innocent – the most compelling evidence for him being Sirius's apparent absolute loyalty to James Potter, and the fact that he had never received a trial. It was rather telling to him that all other occupants of Azkaban – even the terrible Bellatrix Lestrange – had received trials while his godfather had not… and that all others who had been sentenced without trial were already dead, having been picked off over the last decade by starvation, disease, suicide, and Kisses.

He hoped he'd be able to save his godfather before he, too, was murdered.

"I see them," he breathed at last, seeing two laughing redheads appear at the end of the hall, running with all the gangly grace of teenagers who hadn't entirely grown into their long limbs yet. "They're here."

He pulled back into the secret passage, where Su had captured a blue flame in a jar to stave off the encroaching October chill. Not a minute later the twins were darting inside, breathless and laughing.

"What took you so long?" Harry asked, stuffing his invisibility cloak back into his pocket as Su enlarged both jar and flame and the five of them crowded around it.

"Just… _distracting_ Filch for a little while," Fred grinned, high-fiving George. "He won't bother us for a while. He thinks were on the opposite side of the castle. Peeves is helping out – he's a good man, Peeves."

Disbelieving looks from the second years. Fred shrugged.

"Well, when you want a partner for a prank at least."

Su wondered if Peeves would be willing to prank Voldemort should the man ever resurrect himself. She hoped so. A Voldemort in a bright pink wig and wearing Augusta Longbottom's favourite furry green robes was hardly as terrifying as snake-face in his usual Dark-Lord-skeleton-look-alike get up. Well, it was an idea if she didn't manage to prevent the resurrection this time.

"So what's the plan?" George asked, dropping cross-legged by Su's makeshift fireplace.

Harry pulled out Leon the snitch and quickly explained his – and Neville's – idea, including his Luna-induced suspicion that Scabbers might be Pettigrew.

The twins whistled.

"That makes sense, actually," George nodded. "I mean, he's missing a toe – and the only part of Pettigrew they ever found was his finger. He could have cut it off and then transformed… an animagus. That explains _so much_."

"So we use Leon-the-Spy to confirm our theories," Harry went on. "But how do we get him to reveal himself if we're right?"

"Well, there's an animagus revealing spell," Fred hummed. "But it's pretty advanced. You have to put a lot of power into it, and usually also have a pretty good idea of how animagi work, since it's technically a technically a transfiguration. If you screw it up he might turn into a man with a rat's head."

"I don't think any of us have the skills for that," Neville observed. "Maybe a potion… mandrakes, perhaps? They have restorative properties, so maybe a proper mandrake brew can 'restore' Pettigrew to his natural form?"

"Sounds like a good idea," Fred nodded.

"Su, do you think you can take some time off your extend-o bags to research mandrake potions?"

"I don't know, it's sort of a joint project with Hermione," Su frowned. "But if I work hard, I think I can get far enough ahead in Astronomy to have time to research during class – Blaise won't mind… I hope. Besides we still need the right notice-me-not charm for Leon, don't we?"

"Not a problem," Fred grinned at his twin. "We know heaps."

"Comes with pranking territory," George agreed.

"Good," Harry nodded, smiling at the twins. "Right, so you two can help me turn Leon into a spy. Neville and Su, you can research the mandrake potions – and maybe ask Professor McGonagall for more information on animagi. Let's not get too confident, though – the rat's missing toe might just be a coincidence. It might not be Pettigrew. We should have some back up plans in case we're wrong."

"Well, I can't really think of anything that we _can_ do until Leon discovers how he's hiding for sure," Neville said. "But since we're researching mandrakes anyway, I think Su and I can look for anti-invisibility charms, too."

Harry grinned. "I think this just might work."

* * *

Neville and Su found a good potion to reveal animagi before Harry and the twins found a way to get Leon to follow the right person. The notice-me-not charm, and 'camera'-charms were pretty easy, since they'd already done the same with their Spyders last year, but the right tracking charm was coming along a little trickier.

"The snitch is a bit different from the Spyders," George admitted. "But I don't want to use them because Ron _hates_ spiders, and he'd cotton on if we had some fake ones following him around. No need to get his hackles up… especially if there's a Death Eater hanging 'round him all the time."

Harry was unsurprised by the venom in George's tone at the last sentence. No matter how they picked on their brothers, they loved Percy and Ron both with a fiercely protective streak – apparently something they inherited from their mother. If there were a creepy Death Eater that had been sharing a bed with both brothers – as Scabbers had belonged to Percy before Ron – well, there would be hell to pay.

Fortunately Neville and Su had better luck, and were already brewing the animagi-revealing potion with Snape's supervision as a 'personal project'.

Harry wasn't sure how they'd convinced the surly potions master to allow them to brew a fifth-year potion, but he suspected it had something to do with Su's nearly prodigious skill in Potions and the fact that a truce of sorts had been called between the Bat-Man and the trio of second years. Also, Su was a surprisingly good actress when she wanted to be, and in another life could easily have been a Slytherin.

So they were halfway-there – _if_ Pettigrew was the rat – but Neville was still looking for something to reveal an invisible person that could be wielded by second or fourth year students, so backup was coming along nicely.

"How will we get him to eat the potion?" Neville asked.

"Easy," Su shrugged. "We dip the bacon in the potion and put it in front of Ron. The rat eats directly from his plate, so we'll get him for sure. And the potion won't work on anyone who's in their natural form, so if the rats just a rat, nothing will happen."

"This way we've also covered the Ron-is-really-the-rat and Peter-is-disguised-as-Ron possibility," Harry nodded. "The only disguise potion that I know of is Polyjuice – didn't Madame Locke mention that one? At any rate, it's a pretty resistant potion, so the change might take longer than if it was just a transfiguration, but the mandrake potion will speed up the rate that the Polyjuice wears off so…"

"Wow, you've really thought this through," George whistled.

"I think you're more paranoid than we are," Fred nodded, impressed.

Su huffed, crossing her arms and muttering about 'not being paranoid, just vigilant'.

The boys ignored her.

"The snitch will be ready in a few days," the twins assured the trio, having taken Leon off Harry's hands to work with it. "It might take a week or two, but I think we'll have caught some footage of Pettigrew revealing himself. Whether he's the rat or invisible, he'll have to return to normal at some point, otherwise his magic will drain – if he's invisible – or he'll forget what it's like to be human – if he's the rat."

"We can try for the reveal on Halloween," Harry nodded. "That way we'll multiple witnesses from all families – pureblood, half-blood, muggle-born, Light, Dark, whatever – and the ministry won't be able to say that we're lying. Plus all the teachers will be there to help us capture him."

Su swore, and the boys turned to her in surprise. They were honestly not expecting such language from _her_. Su always seemed so… er… well, not the swearing _type_.

"Lockhart," she said shortly. The boys groaned. If anyone was going to screw up their plot it would be Lockhart. The man was a walking disaster.

"I wonder if we can put him out of commission," Fred hummed.

"In hospital wing?" Harry asked, not bothering to disguise the hope in his voice.

"If we can," George grinned.

"Maybe we can sic Snape on him?" Su mused. "Or… I have it! It's fool-proof, or Lockhart-proof as the case may be." The boys turned to look at her and she grinned, sharp toothed and a little bit evil. "Curse his beauty products."

The twins mirrored her grin in sync.

"I like the way you think, ickle Su-Su," George winked at her.

"Why aren't you in Slytherin? Or Gryffindor?" Fred asked, sweeping her up into an enthusiastic hug.

"I look better in blue."

* * *

The boys swore. Harry felt sick. Su reached out and held his hand, and Neville came to hover by his shoulder, a comforting presence.

They'd – finally – managed to get Leon on to tracking Pettigrew. Sure enough, most of the footage they had was of the rat, lazily living out each day sleeping, eating, and drooling a stain in Ron's pocket.

However, a night, the rat would sneak out of the Gryffindor common room, through a tiny secret passage that none of them had even known existed. He would make his way to the kitchen and eat a full meal prepared by the House Elves.

Harry was kind of surprised to see that crazy elf – Dobby, wasn't it? – pop up and chatter earnestly with a few other elves before disappearing again. Was the elf seriously keeping an eye on him and looking out for danger? He hadn't seen any evidence of plots to attack Hogwarts yet, and had begun to relax his guard… the elf didn't even spare a second glance for Pettigrew, so he obviously wasn't the conspirator…

Weird.

They all flinched when Leon's 'camera' zoomed in on the Dark Mark exposed on Pettigrew's left forearm. The man might have been dirty, disgusting, mannerless and utterly _creepy_ – sharing a bed with prepubescent boys was just _wrong_ on so many levels – but to see the evidence of his betrayal, of how far gone he must be to have sided with the psychopath that murdered his parents…

Harry clenched his fists. He'd get revenge. He made a mental note to 'accidentally' step on Ron's rat the next time he saw it.

"Darth Volder's insane," Su murmured beside him, her palm was sweaty where she held his hand tightly, and he could feel her trembling. He wondered if she was afraid. Su was afraid – afraid that it might not work, that Pettigrew would escape and that they'd never free Sirius… that Voldemort would rise and kill Harry and that it would be _all her fault_ for messing with the plot…

"I can't believe he brands his people. Like slaves. That' just…" she trailed off, pulling a face. Harry and Neville shuffled closer. The twins moved forwards, too, until the five of them were crowded in the secret passage behind the mirror, watching Leon's 'film' flash through 'A Week in the Life of Peter Pettigrew'.

"Well, now we know," whispered George. "When… when will the mandrake potion be ready?"

"Halloween, I think," Neville admitted. "The mandrakes don't have to be fully mature to supply the sap for the potion, but they do have to be large enough to survive the loss, even if I do take some from multiple plants."

"Halloween, that's cutting it a little close, don't you think?" Harry asked, squeezing Su's hand as he spoke. He still couldn't quite believe that Pettigrew had been living like this, so close to him, a former friend of his parents, the man who betrayed his family to Voldemort, and Harry had never known. Never suspected.

"As long as it's ready before dinner time," Su murmured. "The elves like the twins, they don't mind helping out with a prank sometimes, as long as it's not messy."

"We're only messy sometimes," Fred nodded.

"Are you nervous?" George asked, looking at the second years.

They hesitated before nodding.

"I feel like I'm going to be sick," Su admitted. "I mean, sure, we're exposing him. But Pettigrew's still a Death Eater, what if he attacks someone while he's trying to escape?"

"We should all be ready with Body-binders then," Harry told them. "The twins can use stunners, right?"

"Well, we _could_ theoretically," Fred frowned. "But Lockhart's kind of useless in that sense. I think we can find some snakes to practice on, though. Don't you?"

"Absolutely," George nodded. No one commented on how pale the twins' faces were. They were all feeling a little terrified, now that Halloween was only a week away and their plan was coming closer and closer to fruition.

"You've got the ingredients?" Fred asked Neville, who nodded, and pulled out a few packets of plant leaves and ground up twigs.

"You can handle Lockhart?" Harry asked. "He's vain, he'll never want to come to the Halloween feast looking anything less than perfect. If you can get into his office, get his robes too. We want to be thorough, and Lockhart can't be allowed _anywhere near us_."

"Yes, sir!" The twins saluted Harry. They sighed as the 'film' flickered away. The twins cancelled the tracking charm on Leon, but didn't remove the 'camera' charms just in case they ever needed a spy again. "Here's your pet back, Harry."

"Thanks."

"You ready?" Su asked as they all left the passage and walked down to dinner, scowling at Lockhart on the way. The boys decided to join her at the Ravenclaw table, not wanting to be anywhere near Pettigrew if they could help it.

"As we'll ever be," Neville mumbled, his face white.

"I think Luna's about to recommend we eat some chocolate," Su whispered as they approached the first-year, still sitting all alone in her small section of the Ravenclaw table. The trio ignored the odd looks they got when they went to sit with Su's eccentric friend – Harry hated the attention, but suspected this time it had more to do with _'why would anyone willingly subject themselves to Loony Lovegood' _than '_I can't believe that's Harry Potter!'_ although, in all fairness, it might have been a bit of both.

"Hello, Harry Potter," Luna hummed. "Hello Su Ren. Who's your friend?"

"Luna, this is Neville Longbottom. Neville, this is Luna Lovegood," Su introduced.

"Ren?" Harry whispered.

"My middle name," Su whispered back.

"You're looking awfully pale," Luna informed them, her eyes glued to the ceiling.

"We're planning a little mischief," Su admitted.

"Got any advice to keep the nargles away?" Harry asked. "We've got enough trouble on our hands without them stirring things up."

"You should make a mistletoe trap," Luna hummed. "It's not Christmas season, but it _is_ getting colder. You might fool them."

"We should put the mistletoe in Lockhart's office," Neville mused. "Can't be too careful with him. Crazy madman."

"He's a fraud, you know," Luna hummed. "He's not a real wizard at all. He's Humphrey Bogart's mucked-up homunculus, and the Ministry's trying to keep it under wraps."

"Is that something you read in the _Quibbler_?" Su asked, by now used to Luna's odd theories and conspiracies. "Or is at an absolute secret you share only with your father."

"_The Quibbler_ did a series on him when he became the Defence teacher," Luna hummed, ignoring the roast beef in favour of the only bowl of chocolate pudding on the table. Harry wasn't surprised to see it, not really, and thought that Luna might have some sort of arrangement with the House Elves.

Hermione Granger – whose parents were dentists – would probably have a fit if she knew about Luna's sugar intake. It was a thought that made him laugh, and when he shared the joke with his friends, it helped break up the tense atmosphere.

One week 'til Halloween.

One week and all hell would break loose.

* * *

"Stop pacing." Su jumped, startled, and turned around. The Girl was standing there frowning at her, blue eyes wide and luminescent.

"You can't tell me what to do," Su scowled, and returned to her pacing, making sure to keep as far away from the Veil as possible. "Especially since you usually don't even talk to me. You can just get over yourself. I'm sick of you."

"Why?"

"Because you're haunting my dreams, and I don't even know who you are, and in case you haven't noticed, _I'm kind of freaking out here!_"

The Girl looked at her, and Su scowled.

"Ana."

What?

"Pardon?" Su asked. "What was that?"

"My name is Ana," she said, drawing out the _ahs _out long and drooping, so that it rhymed more with _tiara_ – er, sort of – rather than the shorter dropped syllables or a regular 'Anna'. "My brother called me that."

"You have a brother?"

"Had. I'm dead now. Sort of."

Su blinked. _What the hell?_

"So… you're dead?"

"As dead as you are."

"So I _am_ dead."

"Well, you were. I _was_." Ana sighed, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. "I know you still sort of think that I'm a figment of your imagination… maybe I am. Maybe you're just dreaming this whole world. But _I_ think I'm real, which is something."

Su dropped to the floor, her knees refusing to hold her up any longer, even in a dream.

"This is _so weird._"

"So why were you pacing, then?" Ana asked as she cautiously approached, and then sat opposite, Su. "Are you worried about something?"

"Do you talk to other people?" Su asked. "I mean, in other dreams, in other people's heads?"

Ana shook her head. "No. I live here, in your brain. I live vicariously through you."

"Vicariously," Su snorted, trying to sort through the confession that _Ana lived in her head and wasn't that really, really weird?_ "Good word."

"Learned it from you," Ana held up the book, which Su realised was titled _Su's Vocabulary_. "This is your dictionary… sort of."

"This is _so weird._" Su repeated.

"So… you want to talk about it?" asked Ana.

"I thought you lived vicariously through me?" Su frowned. "Don't you already know what's going on, if you live inside my head?"

Ana shrugged. "Isn't it good to have a sounding board?"

"Why are you talking to me now, though?" Su frowned, now completely distracted from the Pettigrew Problem. "I mean you never have before – not really. Why now?"

"It's lonely," Ana admitted. "You don't exactly have an abundance of imaginary friends that I can talk to. I was afraid before that… that you'd try to get rid of me. But I've been thinking about it, and I don't think that you can – not without killing yourself. We're stuck together, two souls in one body."

Su groaned, dropping her face into her knees. "My brain hurts," she mumbled. "I have no idea what's going on. No. Idea."

They sat in silence for a while, Su trying to wrap her head around what Ana was saying – two souls? Death? She had a brother? _She had a personalised dictionary?_

Ana just watched her, knowing what Su was worried about, in a vague sense… but living in the other girl's head had only given her access to her knowledge, and to looking at the world through her eyes, like the 'films' that Su watched sometimes.

She didn't really know what Su thought about the world around her, though she could guess, a little. And she really was lonely.

"Okay," Su breathed out. "I guess I can sort of accept it. Were you… were you that silver mist I saw? When I fell through the Veil? Is that why we fell through – because two souls have more life than just one? So why was _I_ the body that came out? Why not you? I don't understand."

"Don't tell the Department of Mysteries," Ana pleaded. "I don't… some of them scare me. What if they… what if they try to separate us, and we die for real?"

Su frowned. "I don't think Beatrice would let that happen… but she's not the only Unspeakable around. You're right, it's possible that they'll separate us and accidentally kill us. They don't know any more about this than we do."

"We can do our own research," Ana offered. "You might not have a photographic memory, but I can look through what you've seen in more detail. Two heads are better than one, right? It'll be like multi-tasking thinking."

Su laughed. "This is _so weird_," was becoming her catchphrase tonight. This Ana was almost as crazy as Luna… and suddenly so sociable. When did that happen?

"Sure," she said at last. "Can't hurt, though I don't really know what titles we'd look at. Theories on souls, I guess. Magical auras. I bet some of the stuff will veer into Dark Arts territory, so I think we'll look into that as a last resort."

Ana beamed. "I'm glad we're friends now."

"Is that what we are?" Su asked, bemused. "Sure. Whatever you say."

"Do you want to talk about Pettigrew now?"

The rest of the dream was spent ranting about Pettigrew (Su) and listening to woes (Ana) – they talked about everything from Su's knowledge of the Harry Potter books, to what might have changed due to Su's interference in the timeline, and the possibilities that Voldemort might either be defeated earlier than scheduled, or might end up ruling the world depending on how Su acted from now on.

"I'm scared," Su admitted. "That what I'm doing is wrong, that I've ruined everything."

"It's too late to change now," Ana told her. "You've just got to do your best to get the most positive outcome. You're already rescuing an innocent man from Azkaban, and stopped Mrs Norris from getting petrified – not to mention all those other students."

Su's thoughts went to Colin Creevey, who was surprisingly adorable. It kind of broke her heart that such a sweet and enthusiastic kid had been petrified by a… a…

She swore.

"What?"

"I can' remember what Slytherin's bloody monster is!"

"Is that important? You've already got the diary. You've already stopped it."

"Are you sure?"

Ana nodded.

Su sighed. "I guess I'm just paranoid. A lot of last year followed the plot of the books even though I tried to avoid it."

"The confrontation with Quirrell," Ana nodded.

"I just hope that the diary doesn't get out again. I've buried it at the bottom of my trunk, but I think the only way to be sure is to destroy it."

"Well, one problem at a time," Ana told her. "Handle Pettigrew first. Then worry about the diary."

"Halloween's tomorrow," Su sighed, looking over at the Veil, fluttering in some non-existent wind. "I just hope we're doing the right thing."

"I'm sure you'll be fine," Ana assured her.

Su didn't really feel comforted though, being told that by a dead person.

* * *

**A/N: **_I'm actually really happy with this chapter! It might be my favourite so far! We've got smart!Harry, sneaky!twins, Leon-the-Spy, and loveable!Luna._

_The identity of the Mysterious Girl is (sort of) revealed! This will be a continuing plot point, so feel free to guess what's going on. _

_What do you think will happen next? Will Pettigrew escape? Will he be captured? Will Harry be able to live with freed!Sirius, or will Dumbledore interfere and send him back to the Dursleys for 'his own protection'?_

_Feel free to review and tell me what you think!_


	8. Monster in our Midst

**Author's Note:** _200 followers! You flatter me guys, thank you so much for your support!_

_The moment you've all been waiting for... Pettigrew's capture! Also some other things. _

* * *

**~ Monster in our Midst ~**

Su woke up early on Halloween morning, heart hammering in her chest. So many things could go wrong today. _So many things._ The worst would be if Pettigrew escaped and managed to get to wherever Voldemort was hiding and the resurrection-thing would happen earlier than in canon.

_We're not ready_, Su thought, thinking of Harry and Neville and herself. _We're just kids – we can't fight an evil megalomaniac villain. Dumbledore can barely fend him off, and he's supposed to be the most powerful wizard in Britain._

Fear curled in her gut, and once again she wondered if befriending Harry Potter last year had been a mistake – if interfering in the story had unforeseen consequences that she would regret. _It's too late to change_, she thought, _I just have to keep moving forward_.

She bent to pull her Ravenclaw tie out of her trunk, flinching when her fingers brushed the cover of Tom Riddle's diary. She didn't know what to do with it. Obviously flushing it down a toilet wouldn't work. Burning it, maybe?

She picked the diary up, draping her tie around her shoulders, and Luna's butterbeer necklace tinkled like tiny bells. She should really remove that – nargle-attracting troublemaker that it was. Sighing she lifted the necklace over her head and dropped it into her trunk, still eyeing the diary in her hand.

"What's that?" Lisa Turpin asked. Su glanced at her roommate – she hadn't quite forgiven Lisa for selling her out to Parkinson and Bulstrode last year, and Lisa hadn't quite forgiven _her_ for having her ostracised within Ravenclaw for a few months.

For now they had a mutually prickly relationship wherein they mostly avoided each other as much as possible, though sharing a bedroom made it rather difficult.

"It's a diary," Su tucked the book into her bag, not trusting Lisa's notoriously sticky fingers around such a dangerous object, remembering all the essays that had gone missing over time, until she'd gotten into the practice of duplicating multiple copies. "My diary – and none of your business anyway."

Lisa sniffed. "Keep your stupid diary," she said, flouncing out of the room.

Su knotted her tie and combed her hair, procrastinating until she really couldn't put it off anymore, before she also left the room to make her way down to the Great Hall for breakfast. Luna was waiting for her in the common room, looking up at the chandelier.

"What are you looking at, Luna?" Su asked.

"I found my shoes," Luna pointed. "Or some of them. I'm not entirely sure how the nargles got them up there, though."

"Do you need help getting them down?" Su asked. "I can teach you the summoning spell if you don't already know it. It's reasonably simple, you know."

"Thank you, Su Ren," Luna smiled and withdrew her wand from the bun in her hair, the blonde locks falling down around her shoulders again. "That would be very useful."

Su taught Luna the spell, and they spent ten minutes retrieving her shoes – not all of them were accounted for, but at least Luna wasn't going barefoot at breakfast.

When they got into the Great Hall, Su made a beeline for the Gryffindor table, where Harry, Neville and the twins sat, whispering urgently among themselves.

"Morning," she said, dropping in between Harry and Neville but not bothering to get any food. She had no appetite – neither did the boys, judging by their empty plates.

"Morning," the twins nodded at her. Oliver, a few seats away, waved at her before turning back to his conversation with Angelina Johnson about Chaser tactics.

"Are we all ready for this?" Harry asked, expression anxious. Neville looked as though he was about to be sick, but he nodded, as did Su. The twins grinned, though their faces were pale and shiny with sweat.

"Okay, so Fred and George are distracting Lockhart," Harry gestured to the twins, who nodded, "while Su and I prepare the Rat Trap. Neville, you're keeping an eye out for, er, what's her name again?"

"Madam Bones," Neville prompted. "I owled her last week, so she should be coming in today – she told me she would. She's the only person in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement that I know – she was friends with my parents."

"Isn't she Susan Bones' aunt?" Su frowned. "Amy… Amelia?"

"Neville nodded.

"We've heard of her," Fred gestured between himself and his brother. "She's good. Really good – Dad has a lot of stories about her. From the war."

"Your parents told out about the war?" Su blinked. Beatrice and Nathan refused to tell her anything – even though they otherwise told her almost everything.

"Dad wasn't telling us," George shook his head, "he was talking to Bill and Charlie – our older brothers. We were eavesdropping."

"Of course you were," Harry rolled his eyes.

"May I join you?" Luna appeared suddenly behind Harry, Neville, and Su, causing Neville to jump in surprise and Harry to clutch his heart in shock.

"Er, sure?" Su said after a moment.

"Thank you," Luna dropped into the space between Su and Neville that had been cleared. "The nargles at the Ravenclaw table were throwing bacon and eggs at me," she brushed some eggs off her shoulder as she said this, and Su began to suspect that 'nargles' was an interchangeable word for 'bullies' where Luna was concerned.

"Are you plotting?" Luna asked as she settled in. "You're looking very conspiratorial. I have chocolate that you can withhold from key witnesses, if you like."

"Er," Neville and the twins exchanged bemused glances, but Harry smiled at her.

"Hullo Luna," he said. "Have you found any of your shoes yet?"

"Some of them," she admitted, "but not to worry. The rest will show up again, in time. Good morning Harry Potter; good morning Neville Longbottom; hullo Gred and Forge. Have the nargles been bothering you lately?"

George grinned. "No, only the wrackspurts."

"It's dreadful," Fred agreed. "I think we caught them from Lockhart."

"He _is_ infested," Luna nodded. "It's no wonder he's always so confused. Wrackspurts make for very fuzzy thinking. What are you plotting?"

"A prank for Lockhart," Fred offered immediately. "Would you like to help us?"

"I don't mind," Luna shrugged, pulling a pear pudding that had not been there before towards her. She either ignored or didn't see Hermione's disapproving look. "I'll get the mistletoe – we can hang it all around his classroom and office. It's very easy."

"We've got the potions to add to his beauty products," Fred patted his bag happily. "We just need a way to get into his stuff undetected."

"I can lend you my invisibility cloak," Harry shrugged. "It's not a problem."

The twins gaped.

"Harry," George reached over the table and snatched at Harry's sleeve. "Did you say that you have an… an… an _invisibility cloak?_ And you've _never pranked anyone with it_?"

"Who says I've never pranked anyone?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow– even though it was the truth. The twins almost fell out of their seats in shock.

"Harry, mate," Fred was the first to regain his balance. "Have we mentioned that you're our best friend in the whole world?"

"What about Lee?"

"He's our best friend, too," George shrugged. Harry just rolled his eyes.

"The cloak belonged to my dad," he said. "It means a lot to me. I think – for now – this should be a one-time thing. It's for a cause, after all."

"Not a problem," Fred breathed. "Not a problem at all."

Harry and the twins set off to get the cloak, George grabbing Luna as well to ask her about her plans to add mistletoe to every surface in Lockhart's office.

Neville tuned to Su, who was clutching her book-bag tightly to her chest, pale and anxious.

"Nervous?" He asked.

"Unbelievably so," she admitted. "What if it all goes wrong? What if he escapes? What if he hurts someone? What if…"

"Su," Neville covered her mouth with one hand, his brown eyes boring into her black ones. "Calm down. We can handle this. All of us are prepared to unleash a body-bind at a moment's notice. You can summon his wand. We're not letting him get away, okay?"

"Okay," she nodded, but she was trembling, too. Neville sighed.

"Come on, Su," he pulled her out of her seat. "We have Charms first."

* * *

History of Magic was the worst.

In Charms Su was able to throw herself into her classwork, distracting herself by focusing only on trying to achieve the spell without speaking the incantation aloud. They were working on charming things different colours, and by the end of the session she was able to turn her objects blue without a word (but only blue).

But in History of Magic, with Professor Binns droning on and on, she was unable to keep focused, and her thoughts kept drifting back to the Pettigrew Problem, and to the diary in her bag.

She glanced around her. Padma was sleeping. Harry and Neville were playing hangman with Ron. Blaise was drawing a picture of a dragon. Lisa glared at her when their eyes met, but then turned away. No one was paying any attention to her.

Su pulled the diary out of her bag and put it on the table.

It didn't look dangerous. It was just a book – and Su loved books and the way they could take her into other worlds with only a little imagination. This book was a little bit more literally captivating than most.

She flipped the book open, dipping her quill in ink and letting her hand hover over the page. What was she doing? This was dangerous – unreasonably, ridiculously dangerous. She couldn't write in this book!

A drop of ink fell from the quill, shining on the page before being absorbed. Su shuddered in fear. She knew that she should put the quill away, hide the diary and never look at it again except, perhaps, to destroy it.

Her hand moved, almost of its own accord.

_Hello, Tom Riddle_.

Why? Why would she do that? She felt sick – she wanted to slam the book shut and run away and throw up in a bathroom somewhere, but she found that she couldn't move, rooted to the spot at the sight of the words written in her own ink.

_Hello to you, too. Who are you, and how do you know my name?_

Su felt as though she were trapped in a dream – or perhaps a nightmare – _why_ couldn't she help herself? Why was she doing this? _What_, exactly, was she even doing?

_My name is… Ren. Your name is written on your diary._

There is a pause, as the words sink into the page. Su could hear nothing except for her own pounding heartbeat. Even Professor Binns' dull drone seemed to disappear.

_It's a pleasure to meet you, Ren. May I ask how you came across my diary?_

_I found it._

He does not ask her to elaborate. Su feels both relieved and afraid. How aware of his surroundings was diary-Riddle? Could he see her? Could he tell that she was lying – sort of – about her name?

_What a perfectly vague answer. Are you a Slytherin?_

_Ravenclaw._

_Ravenclaw is as good a house as any – I myself was considered for Ravenclaw before being sorted into Slytherin. I do admit, I feel that blue might have flattered me more, but in the end, the House of Snakes became my home._

"I look better in blue," Su whispered – did he know? How could he know? Had Ginny written about her? Because she was friends with Harry? _Did Voldemort know?_

Blaise looked over at her, raising a curious eyebrow, but Su just shrugged.

After a moment, he returned to his drawing.

Su's fingers trembled as she dipped her quill in the ink once more.

_How are you doing this? Writing back to me? Are you real?_

The diary shivers on the table, and Su almost imagines that he is chuckling to himself.

_I am very real. This diary is a preservation of my memory. I'll admit, I've always been a talented wizard – I had hoped that I could leave behind a piece of myself to interact with future generations once I became a sufficiently renowned wizard. _

_A bit presumptuous, that you'd become famous, don't you think?_

_I am very ambitious. I wasn't sorted into Slytherin for nothing._

Su thought about the havoc Voldemort had wrought on the wizarding world – how, even twelve years later, witches and wizards still feared to speak his name out loud.

_I suppose you might be right – though I have never heard of you, I'm afraid._

The diary shook again, and this time Su was certain it was laughing at her.

_You might have, under a different name._

_What name?_

She wondered if he'd reveal himself – or if he was more cunning than that.

_Now, that would be telling, wouldn't it? You're a Ravenclaw – Ravenclaws like puzzles and mysteries, don't they?_

She couldn't think of anything to say to that. The class ended, and she shoved the diary into her bag again, trying to ignore the weakness in her knees and the queasiness in her stomach as she followed Harry and Neville down to the Great Hall for lunch.

* * *

Amelia Bones frowned at the crowd, searching for Alice's son.

He'd owled her last week, mentioning that he suspected that a Death Eater was hidden at Hogwarts, and that he'd try to prove it on Halloween. Such a reckless action could only have been the Gryffindor in him – that recklessness was all Alice, despite Frank being the Gryffindor whilst Amelia and Alice had been Hufflepuffs.

She barely recognised him when she saw him sitting beside Harry Potter at the Gryffindor table – the last she'd seen him he had been shy and rather round. He was still fairly chubby, and he looked nervous, but not at all the timid ten-year-old that she remembered.

Amelia was unsure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.

She wondered if this supposed Death Eater would be revealed at lunchtime, or later, at Dinner. She hoped it would be earlier and saw that Neville and his friends (were those the ghosts of Gideon and Fabian? No they'd be the Prewetts' nephews, Fred and George – Molly's boys) were watching Gilderoy Lockhart rather intently.

Was _Lockhart_ their suspected Death Eater? Amelia hoped not – she knew the man was rather arrogant, but he was hardly malicious enough to be a Death Eater.

Amelia turned her attention back to the group of boys… and were those two Ravenclaw girls, sitting with Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom? She raised an eyebrow – inter-house friendships were rather rare, she found.

The twins who so resembled their uncles were sniggering into their hands, while Harry and Neville grinned and high-fived each other. The blonde Ravenclaw smiled absently, and appeared to be eating chocolate pudding, while the other girl appeared rather pale-faced, and was clutching her book-bag tightly in her arms.

McGonagall, sitting next to Amelia, began to giggle.

Amelia glanced at her former Transfiguration professor in surprise. McGonagall _never_ giggled – at least, not that Amelia could recall. She followed the Head of Gryffindor's gaze across the staff table to where Lockhart was sitting.

His face was covered in boils, which was amusing in its own right, but his horrified expression was the clincher. Most of the students had, by this time, begun to notice their Defence Professor's discomfort, and were chuckling amongst themselves, though some few female students (a bushy-haired Gryffindor in particular) looked horrified.

Even Snape broke his usually stoic-or-sneering rule to grin triumphantly at Lockhart – though Amelia would admit that it was _very_ similar to a smirk.

Not only was Lockhart covered in boils, but his nose began to grow – Amelia was reminded of the muggle story of Pinocchio, and began to chuckle herself, though she was unsure where this was going. It did not appear to be any particular unmasking of a Death Eater, but merely a prank.

The pranksters did not appear to be finished, either. To Lockhart's horror, and the rest of the Hall's great amusement, Peeves flew into the hall carrying a great bucket of mud, cackling the whole time.

The bucket was promptly dropped onto Lockhart's head.

Gilderoy howled in despair whilst the rest of the room howled with laughter – even Pomona, who could usually be counted on to be sympathetic with everyone, was crying with mirth. Amelia raised an eyebrow, wondering what Lockhart had done to become as universally hated within Hogwarts as that unpleasant Umbridge woman was within the Ministry. Perhaps his overwhelming fondness for Lilac substituted for Umbridge's ridiculous obsession with pink?

At any rate, it did not appear that any Death Eaters had been revealed yet. Amelia settled back into her seat, watching Neville and his friends grin at each other, making a toast with their pumpkin juices, while Lockhart fled from the room, stuttering some excuse about making himself properly presentable.

* * *

"You've covered his whole room with mistletoe?" Harry asked the twins.

"Yep," they nodded.

"I've no idea where she got it all, but Luna had so much mistletoe we were able to stuff it into his drawers and everything! His clothes are covered in it!" Fred nodded towards Luna, who smiled serenely back at him.

"I only asked the House Elves for a little help," she shrugged.

"We got all of his beauty products," George continued. "Shampoo, conditioner, perfume, make-up – everything that we could get our hands on."

"He should be out of our hair for at least another few days, and he definitely won't be bothering us at dinner tonight." Fred concluded.

Su nodded. "Harry and I will go down to the kitchens this afternoon after class. The potion is ready, so now all we have to do is arrange for it all to be carried out by the elves. I love the elves – they're so helpful and sweet. Maybe we should get them Christmas presents, to show our gratitude?"

Neville nodded. "Just not clothes – they'd hate us for that."

"Tea towels, maybe?" Su suggested.

"Maybe."

"Madam Bones is here," Neville said, noticing the Head of the DMLE at last. "I wonder how long she's been there?"

"Who?" The others turned around to get a better look at the Head Table.

"The one sitting next to Professor McGonagall."

"She looks pretty severe," Su murmured, when Madam Bones raised an unimpressed eyebrow in their direction.

"Probably didn't like the prank we pulled," Fred shrugged. "Responsible folk usually look down on stuff like that. She'll probably scold us later – or get McGonagall to do it."

"Severe is a good thing, right?" Harry looked at Su. "We want… you-know-who," they glanced at Ron before quickly looking away, "to be punished properly, don't we?"

Su nodded, anxious. She was keenly aware of the diary in her bag, both afraid to keep it near her, and afraid to let it out of her sight. She was unable to focus on any one thing – the Pettigrew Problem, or Madam Bones' disapproval, or the memory of Voldemort chatting with her in History of Magic…

"Are you all right, Su?" Harry asked her, frowning.

"Just nervous," she told him, shoving her bag down into her lap, hidden under the table. "I'm worried that something will go wrong."

"Maybe something will," Harry nodded, and Su tensed, "but we'll be ready for it."

"I hope you're right."

The afternoon dragged on. Su was distracted in Astronomy, where she was supposed to be writing an essay on the history of naming stars, and Blaise was getting annoyed with her fidgeting.

"What's the problem?" He hissed at her, glaring at the Slytherins who were scowling at him for interacting with one of _Potter's friends._ "You've been on edge for a month, but you're worse than ever today. What's wrong?"

Su shook her head, unable to answer, and her fingers trembled as she tried to write her essay. Blaise reached out and grabbed hold of her hand, tilting her chin up with one finger and forcing her to meet his eyes.

"Something's wrong. Why won't you tell me?"

Su glanced over at Professor Sinistra, who was beaming at Draco Malfoy's wonderful essay – Malfoy was obnoxiously good at Astronomy. She looked back at Blaise.

"Blaise… are we friends?"

He scoffed. "What kind of question is that? Of course we are."

"Do you… do you trust me?"

Blaise hesitated. "Yes."

"You're a Slytherin," Su told him. "You only trust me as far as you can throw me. That's fine. Blaise – I can't tell you what's going on at the moment, but I promise I'll try and explain it all later. Soon."

"You're exhausted, though," Blaise frowned. Su didn't deny it. "You should take better care of yourself. I don't care what's happening, just…" he sighed, and looked over at his Slytherin classmates, who were all caught up in a mandatory moment of Malfoy-admiration. None of them were paying the slightest bit of attention to Blaise or Su.

"Here, take this," Blaise unclipped a necklace from around his own neck – it was rather plain, just a small diamond on a gold chain – but looking closer, Su realised that the chain links were actually miniature runes. "It's supposed to keep you healthy."

"Blaise, I can't take this," she whispered. "This is yours."

"I want you to have it," Blaise insisted, reaching forward and clipping it around Su's neck – batting her hands out of the way when she tried to stop him. "Just until this… _thing_ – whatever it is that you can't tell me about – is over. I can handle myself, Su, but it doesn't appear as though you can do the same."

"Hey," she frowned. "I can take care of myself."

"Prove it," Blaise returned, and Su scowled. She fingered the necklace with one hand while she tried to return her focus to the essay, but she couldn't concentrate.

"Thank you," she said, at the end of class when Blaise was about to leave.

"Thank me by staying safe," Blaise shrugged. "You _are_ my friend – even if we don't spend much time together. Believe it or not, but I actually care about my friends."

Su smiled. "I believe you."

"Good." Blaise nodded, before walking away. Su fingered the necklace again and smiled – she _did_ feel a bit better, though whether it was the magic in the necklace, or from being assured of Blaise's friendship she wasn't sure.

"Not satisfied with Gryffindors, now you're consorting with Slytherins, too?"

Su turned around, not very surprised to see Lisa Turpin sneering at her.

"I think that's very ironic, coming from you."

"Show a bit of house pride," was all Lisa said, before she shoulder past Su and followed her friends – Isobel Moon and Morag McDougal – down the stairs, probably headed towards the library to finish her essay.

Su sighed. Lisa was right, in a way. She didn't really have many friends within her own house, except perhaps Luna and Padma. She enjoyed being a Ravenclaw, but at the same time… maybe she didn't belong in her own house? Maybe she _should_ have been a Gryffindor, or a Slytherin? Green _was_ her favourite colour, though she was also very fond of blue, especially since being sorted into Ravenclaw…

"The sorting hat is never wrong," she told herself. "And there are no rules against befriending people in other houses. Blue is just a colour, it can't control me."

Still, she felt unsettled by Lisa's words.

Her anxiety peaked when she collected the potion from the storage room near Snape's classrooms. The Potions Master wasn't there, but she could almost feel his intimidating presence looming disapprovingly over her and her undoubtedly-Gryffindor-ish behaviour.

Harry met her in the kitchens, chatting with the House Elves about the Plan.

"Is that the potion?" Harry asked. Su nodded.

"Do you think we could include it in a pumpkin pie? If dessert's the last course, then Pettigrew will be stuffed full and really tired, so maybe we can catch him by surprise?"

"I like the way you think, Harry Potter," Su grinned.

He really was quite clever – was he this clever in the books? She couldn't remember, but imagined that he must have been. It was becoming harder for her to tell the difference between the characters that she read about and the people that she cared about as time passed. The story was so different now from what it was that she could hardly recognise it.

Her knowledge of the 'future' was becoming less relevant, and that scared her, because she couldn't prepare for what she couldn't predict.

_Stop thinking, Su Ren Li,_ she told herself. _Just focus on the task at hand_.

She wondered if her self-doubt was due in part to being around Riddle's diary, if anxiety about her friends was what drove Ginny into Tom's metaphorical arms, and if that was how the diary trapped its victims…

_Task. At. Hand._

"You all right, Su?" Harry asked, looking up at her from the bowl of pumpkin pie mix that he was stirring the potion into. He had flour on his face, and his eyes were ridiculously green – a bright emerald that Su would never have seen in her own world.

"I'm fine," she lied, though she felt a bit better fingering Blaise's necklace, sitting at her throat.

* * *

Halloween dinner passed by at an agonisingly slow pace. The main course seemed to go on, and on, and on. The twins sat by Ron, with Harry and Neville and Su sitting opposite. Oliver kept trying to talk Quidditch with Harry, but the Seeker was too distracted for conversation.

Luna was sitting a little further down, with Colin and Ginny, who appeared much brighter and less pale now that she had friends to talk to and no evil sixty-year-old-diary-guy leeching her soul out of her skin – ick.

Harry noticed Su was wearing a new necklace – not the butterbeer one that Luna had given her, but a pretty gold chain, with a diamond on it. She was constantly fidgeting – not that he could blame her – but he wondered where she got it.

"Where'd you get that necklace from, Su?" Neville asked.

She flushed red, dropping her hand immediately.

"Blaise," she mumbled.

Harry frowned, but supposed that if Su was going to have a crush on somebody, Blaise was a better option than most. Still, Su was his best friend – almost like a sister – and he was beginning to find that he was extremely protective of her.

The twins were teasing her about it – though a little half-heartedly. They tossed around the words 'ickle Su-Su' and 'isn't she cute?' – but Harry noticed them glaring over Su's shoulder at the Slytherin table, presumably at Blaise.

Su's possible crush on Blaise, or Blaise's possible crush on Su were only momentary distractions, however. The evening dragged on, and in spite of the decorations – of the cheerful carved-pumpkin candles, and the delicious food, the swooping bats, and joyous atmosphere – five students at the Gryffindor table were stiff and morose, barely touching their meals.

Amelia Bones ate with McGonagall, chatting about her job at the DMLE, keeping one eye on Neville Longbottom, the Weasley twins, Harry Potter, and the girl whose name she had learned was Su Li.

The day was almost over and no Death Eaters had revealed themselves, nothing was out of the ordinary at all, aside from the nervous energy evident in the five students.

After lunch, Amelia had asked a few of the teachers about those students, and had put together a vague image of them according to their teachers' reports. The Weasley twins were apparently notorious pranksters, fiendishly clever but not at all applied to their academics as much to their inventions and pranks. They sounded, to Amelia, like a second coming of James Potter and Sirius Black – minus a more conservative Remus Lupin or shy Peter Pettigrew to keep them in check.

She sighed at the memory of the boys in their school-time glory. They were so happy, once, before becoming involved in the war. Now James and Peter were dead, Sirius was a monster in Azkaban, and Remus had disappeared from Britain as far as she could tell, fleeing from a land that held so much betrayal and heartbreak for him.

Neville was not entirely as Amelia had expected. He was still rather shy – that she remembered – but befriending Harry Potter and Su Li had brought him out of his shell quite a bit. After Christmas last year he had begun performing much better, and was less anxious in approaching his classwork. He was a hardworking, fairly clever boy, and Amelia was proud of him – so very much Alice's son. Frank's, too, she supposed, but she had never known Frank as well as she had Alice, and while Neville looked a lot like his father, his personality was all his mother.

The same could be said, apparently, for Harry Potter. He was the spitting image of James, so much so that Amelia half-expected a twelve-year-old Sirius Black to come strolling around the corner, probably with his shirt untucked and papers falling out of his bag but without a care in the world. Except for his eyes – Harry's eyes were the same startling green as Lily Evans' – or Lily Potter, Amelia corrected – had been.

For a boy who had saved the entire wizarding world as a child, Harry was surprisingly grounded and modest. Much more Lily's son than James' in that respect – James, while a good man, had been a rather arrogant and explosive boy, always moving, acting, pranking – always the centre of attention. For a celebrity, Harry kept an impressively low profile.

He worked hard in class, was a powerful, if unfocused, wizard, and while friendly, he mostly kept to his small group of friends, which included Neville, the Gryffindor Quidditch team, his roommates… and Su Li.

Su Li. That girl was, perhaps, the most mysterious of the group that Amelia had asked questions about. Other than befriending Harry Potter and being involved in some sort of altercation with the Death Eater Quirinus Quirrell in June, Su Li was merely a typical Ravenclaw – intelligent, driven, and talented.

Little was known about her, though the Li's had been purebloods for generations. She was apparently an orphan from Australia, taken in by her distant cousin, Nathan, and his wife Beatrice. She excelled in Potions and Charms, did decently in Transfiguration, and was more interested in Dark Lords than Goblin Wars when it came to History of Magic.

Amelia recognised that Su might have been a mystery merely because she had no one to compare the girl to – she knew each of the boys' parents – had gone to school with them – but had never really interacted with any of the Li's, though she was aware that Beatrice was an Unspeakable in the Department of Mysteries.

At any rate, these five students were the ones involved in the plot to reveal a hidden Death Eater at Hogwarts, though Amelia was beginning to suspect – with the twins' reputation – that it was all an elaborate prank, though why they would involver her at all was a mystery that baffled her.

She didn't know which to hope for – that they were telling the truth, so that she could trust them and find that a Death Eater had been roaming Hogwarts undetected – or that it was all a prank and be relieved that there were no Death Eater but terribly annoyed that they had wasted so much of her time.

Dessert was a pleasant distraction from unpleasant thoughts, and Amelia happily tucked in to her treacle tart.

Ron was delighted when a whole pumpkin pie materialised in front of him, and he realised that no one around him wanted any part of it. Hermione, of course, almost always refused sweets of any kind – and she may have been his best friend in the whole world, and helped him with his homework and everything, but she was also mental.

The twins not wanting any pie was unusual, and Ron began to suspect that they had doused it with something for a prank, but when they helped themselves to three treacle tarts each, he guessed that they just weren't in the mood.

Shrugging, Ron served himself a large slice of pie, cutting another piece for Scabbers, sitting on the table beside his elbow. He didn't notice the five pairs of eyes that were trained anxiously on his pet rat. He did notice that his pie tasted a little funny – a bit tingly on his tongue – but it wasn't a terrible flavour, so he kept eating.

Scabbers nibbled eagerly at his own piece of pie, and Ron grinned. Scabbers had a fondness of sweets that was shared by his owner, it was a part of the reason that Ron liked his pet so much.

Harry and his friends gripped their wands tightly under the table. The air was practically humming with their anxiety. The rat continued to eat the pie.

It didn't happen suddenly, as they had expected – one moment a rat, the next, a man.

First, the rat began to grow, swelling up so that it was the size of Ron's plate, its fat tail drooping over the edge of the table. Then it was the size of a five-year-old child, and people were beginning to stare.

Ron gaped at his rat. "Scabbers! You're growing! Fred, what have you done?"

The rat twitched, its head flopping onto the table.

Su couldn't help it – faced with its beady eyes, she screamed and stabbed its front paw with a fork. "Get it away! Get it away!" she screeched.

When it was the size of a rather fat man – or perhaps Dudley Dursley – it began to change shape. The bleeding paw shifted into a dirty, long-nailed hand with stubby fingers. The matted brown fur faded into a patched and ragged suit, which might once have been grey, but was now brown with dirt.

Su was, perhaps, most surprised by his face. He wasn't ugly – though he wasn't handsome – but he _did_ look very young. Round-faced and frightened. Harmless even. No wonder no one ever suspected he was the spy – Pettigrew looked as though he'd be afraid of his own shadow.

There were quite a few people screaming now – or perhaps not screaming, but certainly exclamations of surprise. In all the chaos, no one really noticed when four boys shouted body-bind curses at the revealed Death Eater, or when Su summoned two wands from his pockets and shoved them into her bag.

Ron was so surprised by his rat turning into a man that he didn't even notice when Harry stabbed a fork into the hand that wasn't bleeding, hissing, "That was for my parents."

Amelia Bones didn't miss it. She didn't bother walking around the Head Table – she scrambled right over it, getting treacle tart and pumpkin pie all over her robes. There were students in her way, but she just pushed them aside, until finally she arrived at the Gryffindor table, where a man that she thought she should recognise lay face-down on the table, arms outstretched before him as though he was pleading the Boy-Who-Lived for his life. Harry Potter glared at the figure on the table, unmoved.

"Excuse me," Amelia pushed a young Weasley whose name she didn't know aside, and leaned forward to get at the frozen man's sleeve. Carefully she pulled it up – there were gasps all around (and some screams) when the Dark Mark was revealed.

"This man is a Death Eater," she declared, her voice echoing in the sudden silence of the Great Hall. A beat, and then panic erupted. Screams, chatter, students trying to flee while others struggled to come closer to the revealed criminal.

Only five students did not move or say a word. Harry and Neville and one of the Weasley twins appeared grim, but determined. The other twin, and Su Li, were pale, as though they were about to be sick. Amelia didn't blame them. She knew first hand what Death Eaters could do to people. What sort of monsters they could become.

"Students!" Albus Dumbledore's voice boomed over the noise. The hall grew silent once more. "Calm yourselves. Prefects, please escort all students to their dorms. Allow your professors to handle this matter."

"You five," Amelia pointed to Neville and his friends, while she conjured ropes to bind the revealed Death Eater. "Stay behind. We have to talk about this."

* * *

It did not go unnoticed that Harry Potter's little trio and the Weasley twins remained in the Great Hall while all the other students cleared it. Rumours spread, theories were thrown around, but no one would really know what had happened until the paper was published the next day with all the sordid details – written by a journalist that was _not_ Rita Skeeter as per the request of all involved. (_The Quibbler'_s version of events was much more accurate than the _Daily Prophets_, though still a little embellished.)

Su shrank against Harry, her bloodstained fingers finding his own. The twins backed them, and Neville stood on Harry's other side. Of the five of them, only Harry and Neville were able to look their professors – and Amelia Bones – in the eye.

Su was painfully aware of the diary in her bag, and of the way that Dumbledore's eyes lingered on her as he appraised the group – his gaze darting between herself and Harry.

She wondered what he was thinking, and hoped that he wouldn't try to separate her from Harry. She didn't really think that he would – Dumbledore was one of the good guys after all – but he made her anxious, and she understood why Voldemort was afraid of him. Dumbledore was powerful, yes, but he had the frightening ability to look at you as though he could see into your very soul – much more unsettling than Luna's clear, honest gaze. That twinkle in his eye – Su always felt as though he knew something, and delighted in not telling her what it was.

"A Death Eater?" McGonagall gasped, almost running towards the Gryffindor table and her little group of lions (plus Su). "Severus, did you know about this?"

"I did not," Snape sneered. McGonagall reddened.

"Who is this mysterious Death Eater?" Albus asked, sounding very calm and wise and twinkly. Su noticed that he was the only teacher without food-stains on his robes. Even Snape had a spill of coffee on his robes.

"Peter Pettigrew," Harry announced. Su wasn't sure if she was imagining the sudden chill in the air – and if she wasn't, did it come from Harry, or from someone else?

"Impossible," Snape scowled. "Pettigrew is dead. Black blew him up, in a street full of muggles, no less. This is one of your pranks, isn't it, Potter? You've been biding your time up until now, trying to imagine the best way to create absolute chaos? Well congratulations – for this little stunt you should be expelled. All of you."

"This is real, Snape," Amelia whispered, her fingers still lingering on the exposed Dark Mark on the other man's forearm. "You can check it, if you like."

Snape glanced at the other professors, who nodded encouragingly. He frowned, but stepped forward, silently casting charms that Su didn't recognise over the Mark.

After a moment he stepped back.

"It's real." He glared at the students, and the twins and Neville flinched, while Harry only gripped Su's hand tighter, and the Ravenclaw very carefully avoided everyone's gaze. "How did you know about this? What have you done?"

"Severus," McGonagall put a hand on the Potions Master's shoulder. "Is it really him? Is it really Peter?"

"I don't care who it is," Snape growled.

Amelia turned the body over – Pettigrew's eyes darted everywhere, taking in his surroundings, all the professors hovering over him, even Amelia Bones who he had gone to school with and was now the Head of the DMLE. He would have whimpered, but he couldn't make a sound.

"Peter," McGonagall whispered, eyes wide. Her gaze darted to his left hand, which was missing a finger, and further up his arm, the Dark Mark was painted like an ugly bruise on his skin. "Peter, what have you done?"

"Severus, do you happen to have any veritaserum on you, by any chance?" Dumbledore asked.

Snape opened his mouth – probably to say something witty and biting – but Amelia interrupted him.

"There's no need, I've brought my own," she held up the vial. The glass winked at them, reflecting the eerie candlelight. "Though perhaps a change of venue is in order?"

Dumbledore nodded. "Of course. My office is available, I believe. Professors, please see to the students and check the grounds for any more breaches. Severus, Minerva, please join us. You too, Misters Weasley, Mister Longbottom… Harry. Miss Li, you look quite green – do you need to see Madam Pomfrey?"

Su shook her head.

"Well then, let us relocate."

Su didn't let go of Harry's hand as they made their way to Dumbledore's office. The walk itself was not very long, but her heart was thudding anxiously in her chest the whole time, and she thought that she might throw up she was so nervous.

The last time she felt this afraid, she had been trapped in a room with a Voldemort-possessed-Quirrell. She kept recasting the body-bind spell on Pettigrew, and though she was sure that the professors were aware of her actions, none of them commented on her paranoid – _vigilant_ – behaviour.

They halted in front of a stone gargoyle. The password was apparently 'Pumpkin Pie' – which all of the students believed was incredibly ironic. Neville even let out a hysterical giggle, which earned him odd looks from the professors (and Madam Bones).

Dumbledore's office was a cluttered with knickknacks and books and jars of various types of candy. There were so many portraits of past Headmasters that they were squeezed in tightly together, the collection stretching up to the ceiling. Most of the upper-frames appeared abandoned, however, and the lower ones were crowded with curious past-teachers, all jostling each other for a better view at whatever was happening in Dumbledore's office.

Su noticed the phoenix almost immediately. She could not remember when Harry had first seen it – on its burning day – but thought that it would be soon. The bird was beautiful, yes, but it was a faded sort of beauty. Tired. She hoped she'd be able to meet the bird in all its glory some other time, under better circumstances.

Dumbledore must have noticed her looking – or perhaps one of the others was staring too (Harry?) – and he saw fit to introduce them to his familiar.

"Fawkes is a phoenix," he said, for the benefit of the students rather than the adults who were already aware of the fact. "He is usually much more impressive to behold, but is, sadly, approaching his burning day, and his beauty wanes."

McGonagall conjured up a couch for the students to sit on, while Madam Bones reversed the body-bind jinx on Pettigrew in order to push him into a nearby armchair. Before he can move, McGonagall has already transfigured the arms to close over his wrists like manacles, pinning him in place.

"Please, you don't understand!" He gasped, able to talk now that he is no longer petrified. "I can explain!"

"_Silencio_," Snape growled, voice low and dangerously angry. Pettigrew's mouth continued to move, but he made no sound, and began to cry.

Dumbledore took his seat behind his desk, putting his elbows on the table and pressing his fingers together – he looked very wise, and Su wondered how much of it was real and how much of it was false – and then how much her thoughts were her own, or if they were influenced by the diary in her bag in her lap.

"From the beginning, if you please," was all that Dumbledore said.

The twins looked at Harry, but Harry and Neville were looking at Su – subsequently, it was up to Su to think of a proper story to tell, but she couldn't think of a way to do so without revealing any secrets.

She glanced up at the twins, silently asking if they were okay with the map being revealed. They hesitated, and exchanged a glance, before sighing in resignation.

Fred pulled the map out of his pocket.

"We saw a name on the map," Su began, while Fred whispered the code, revealing the Marauders Map. "A name that didn't fit – Peter Pettigrew."

The teachers – and Madam Bones – leaned in, examining the figures within Dumbledore's office, and then those in the dormitories, and even the names of prefects patrolling the halls – in pairs, just in case there were any other Death Eaters at large within the castle.

"I'd read the name in a book," Su continued, "about Harry's family – about his parents and their friends – about James Potter, and Sirius Black, and Remus Lupin…"

"And Peter Pettigrew," Madam Bones finished. "I see."

"I got nervous," Su admitted. "Because I knew that Harry's godfather – Sirius Black – had gone to prison for the murder of Peter Pettigrew. But the map doesn't lie, and there are no Peter Pettigrews at Hogwarts… so Pettigrew had to be alive, which meant that Black had been imprisoned for a crime he never committed."

"I assure you, Miss Li," Dumbledore frowned. "Sirius Black was found guilty."

"Was he?" Harry asked, and all attention turned to him. "Su gave me that book – I read it all the way through. There was never any mention of a trial for Sirius Black. Only that he was crazy and got put into Azkaban – but I think I'd go crazy if my best friends just died," he squeezed Su's hand tighter, and Neville shifted closer to his side, "and even more if one of my other best friends was a Death Eater."

"Even Bellatrix Lestrange got a trial," Neville mumbled.

McGonagall and Madam Bones looked down at their feet at the reminder of what happened to Alice and Frank Longbottom, while Snape remained impassive, and Dumbledore just kept smiling like a wise and eccentric mentor.

"So I started thinking about it," Harry continued, taking over the tale, "when Su told me about what she'd seen on the map. It didn't add up for me – that Sirius could be a Gryffindor when all his family was in Slytherin, and when he got kicked out of his house and went to live with my dad, and they fought together, risked their lives together, throughout the war… I didn't believe that he could betray my parents. For anything."

"The map belongs to us," Fred pointed to the parchment in Harry's hands. "We know that it doesn't lie. The name Pettigrew had been sticking around our brother – Ron, and even Percy, now that I think about it – sticking around our brothers for ages, but we didn't know what it meant. We just thought he was another Hogwarts student."

"Then Harry told us about the book he'd read," George continued. "We got a bit suspicious – a full grown man hanging around our brothers, invisible, all the time?"

"We investigated," Neville murmured. "We figured out a way to spy on the rat, and we watched it… him… transform into Pettigrew. Harry saw the missing finger – he figured out what must've happened. We all saw the Dark Mark."

"That's when you contacted me," Madam Bones hummed. Neville nodded. "You told me that you'd discovered a Death Eater, and were going to reveal him."

"How did you manage to reveal him?" McGonagall asked.

Su glanced at Snape, hovering in the shadows by the wall.

"They approached me," he drawled, and Su wondered if she was imagining the almost-proud gleam in his eye when he looked at her – wondered if he was imagining her in Slytherin green like it appeared everyone else did. "With a side project inspired by their work with Pomona's mandrakes. An animagi-restoring potion."

McGonagall snorted, and all eyes turned to her.

"You probably thought they were going to test it on me, didn't you?"

Snape just smirked.

"We put the potion in a pumpkin pie, with help from the house elves," Harry continued, handing the map back to the twins, who whispered 'mischief managed' and one of them tucked it into his pocket. "We know that Ron eats a lot, and that he feeds his food to his rat as well – to Pettigrew – so it was a pretty fool-proof plan to reveal the rat."

"Where did the prank on Lockhart come into it?" Madam Bones asked.

The students exchanged glances, and then looked sheepishly down at their feet. Su was the one who muttered the answer.

"Lockhart ruins everything."

"Well, I'm not going to disagree with that," McGonagall sniffed. Snape grunted in agreement.

"So you waited for Pettigrew to transform and then attacked him with body-binders before he could react," Dumbledore mused. "That's quite a clever plan. Yours, I presume, Harry?"

"It was a group project," Harry returned.

"We're all very impressed with your ingenuity, Harry," Dumbledore smiled. "Thank you for revealing to us an unknown Death Eater in our midst. I imagine this ordeal has been exhausting for you. Minerva, why don't you escort the boys to their dorms – Severus, you should take Miss Li. I'm sure Madam Bones has a few more questions for Mr Pettigrew over here."

McGonagall stepped towards the couch, but none of the students moved.

"Aren't you forgetting something, Professor Dumbledore?" Harry frowned.

"Hmmm?" Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. "What might that be, Harry?"

"My godfather. The innocent one."

Dumbledore sighed. "I know that this must be hard for you to accept, Harry, but sometimes people are not all that they appear to be. Your godfather may be innocent of the murder of Peter Pettigrew, but he is still the man who betrayed your parents to Voldemort." Half the room flinched at the name. "I wish desperately that this were not so, but I hate to lie, Harry. I'm sorry."

"How do you know?" Harry scowled. "Why are you so sure?"

"What do you know, Harry, about the Fidelius Charm?" Dumbledore asked. Harry remained silent. "It is an incredibly powerful charm, meant to keep an object or location completely hidden. Only those who have been told the secret can find whatever has been hidden, and only the Secret Keeper can reveal the Secret. Sirius Black was the Secret Keeper for your parents' home at Godric's Hollow. Sirus Black betrayed them to Voldemort, for what reason, I do not know, but it is true."

Su watched Pettigrew hang his head in shame, but Harry – and pretty much everyone else in the room – was completely focused on Dumbledore.

"_How do you know?_" Harry shouted. It wasn't fair. Here was a chance for a connection, for someone who had been friends with his parents to be a part of Harry's life. Here was Harry's chance to be a hero – to save someone from a terrible suffering fate in Azkaban, and it was slipping through his fingers. "Why are you so sure? Why are you _ruining everything_?"

"Harry my boy…"

"Just ask Pettigrew," Su interrupted. "Madam Bones has the veritaserum. Pettigrew was best friends with the Potters – he'd know who the Secret Keeper was. Ask him."

Dumbledore was ashamed to admit that he had almost entirely forgotten Pettigrew's presence in the room – as had most of the adults. In fact, he had almost forgotten Su herself, so engrossed had he been in trying to break the truth gently to Harry.

Amelia nodded, pulling out the vial of clear potion and striding over to the chair where Pettigrew was trying to blend into the wall. He whimpered when she lifted his head, but didn't really struggle when she held the potion above his head and let three drops fall onto his tongue.

Snape reversed the silencing charm.

"What is your full name?" Madam Bones asked.

"P-Peter Leonard Pettigrew."

"What house were you sorted into at Hogwarts?"

"Gryffindor."

"Who was the Secret Keeper for the Potters at Godric's Hollow?" Su interrupted.

The adults glanced irritably at her, but she wasn't paying attention. All of the students were focused upon Pettigrew's answer.

"I was."

"WHAT?" McGonagall screeched. Dumbledore's jaw dropped, and he appeared rather gobsmacked by the revelation.

"Why were you the Secret Keeper?" Harry asked.

"Sirius was James' best friend," Pettigrew sobbed. "He was the obvious choice, and I wasn't. No one would suspect that _cowardly nobody _Peter Pettigrew could possibly be important enough to be _Secret Keeper_ for the _wonderful, perfect Potters._"

"They didn't know you were a Death Eater." It was more a statement than a question, coming from Neville's lips, but it wasn't Pettigrew who answered.

"Obviously not," Snape hissed. Su turned to look at the Potions Professor, surprised by the venom in his voice. She was startled by the intense look of hatred that the Head of Slytherin was directing at Pettigrew – a heated anger that had not been present before.

"So all these years, Sirius Black has been an innocent man, sentenced to Azkaban for a crime he did not commit?" Amelia Bones looked around the office, feeling as though she was in a nightmare. She couldn't imagine it – being in Azkaban and not deserving it, being hated by everyone left alive that one cared about, and being thought to be the very person to have betrayed one's own best friends to the enemy.

No one denied it, and Amelia was horrified.

What had they done to Sirius Black?

* * *

**A/N:** _I'm not going to lie - this chapter was quite challenging for me to write. I hope that I was able to reflect the characters' emotions properly. This was a very intense chapter, I feel. _

_Well, obviously diary!Riddle is still around, causing minor problems and everything. Stupid almost-indestructable-Horcruxes. Not dying straight away is just plain rude, I think. Villains should just die and let Happily-Ever-After play out. Voldemort's breaking the rules. _

_Anyway, thank you for reading all of this - if you have an opinion, or any questions, just review! It only takes a few seconds. _


	9. Concerns

**Author's Note:** _A little action-less break to have a look at where our characters are at emotionally. Some character development, if you like. __  
_

_Basically, everyone needs to wind down and sort themselves out after the Halloween fiasco. _

* * *

**~ Concerns ~**

Sirius Black was surprised when Amelia Bones arrived in front of his cell in Azkaban, her owl patronus shooing away the lingering dementors. He never got visitors. Never, in the decade he had been unjustly imprisoned, had any of his former friends or allies deigned to visit Sirius Black.

No one had bothered to listen to his story. Not even Remus. Not even Dumbledore.

But now Amelia Bones – who he remembered from school, and from the war – stood awkwardly outside his door looking at him with an expression of… guilt? Yes, there was guilt in her eyes - guilt and pity, but no hatred, or anger, or even general disdain.

Sirius allowed himself to indulge in a moment of brief fantasy. Perhaps there had been a day of spring-cleaning in the ministry, and Amelia, checking through the files, discovered that there was no transcript of a trial for Sirius Black. Perhaps she had realised that there may have been a mistake – that maybe Black had been imperiused, or otherwise influenced to blow up that street of muggles…

Perhaps he'd finally be set free, able to find his godson, to be a part of Harry's life, to feel the sun on his skin once more…

_In your dreams, Sirius Black,_ he thought to himself, swallowing a bitter laugh. _You know better than to hope – you'll just bring the dementors down on your head._

"Amy," Sirius smiled, and Amelia winced. Sirius still held some of his charm, though he was a shadow of his former self, sunken and starved – more like a ghost than the handsome and happy man that he should have been. "What brings you to my humble abode? I'd offer you tea, but…" he trailed off, gesturing to the filthy cot in the corner, the stained chamber pot, and the remains of his daily meal, mouldering by the door.

"Sirius Black," Amelia was pale, and grim-faced. "I owe you an apology."

Sirius raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

_Don't hope, don't hope, it's not real, it never is._

"It appears that the Ministry of Magic never gave you a trial for the crimes you were accused of," it did not escape his notice that she had said 'accused of' and not 'committed'. "As a result, there was no opportunity for you to share with us the truth."

_It's a lie, it's a nightmare, you'll wake up with the dementors hovering over you eating your dreams and it's not. Bloody. Real. _

"Oh?" He was impressed by his own ability to keep his voice from trembling. "By all means, Amy, feel free to grovel. It'd be a welcome change of scenery."

"Sirius," she choked, her expression hurt, but he couldn't really find it in himself to care. If it was real – and he was afraid to hope that it might be – then she deserved a little anxiety in return for all his years of _torture_ – the suffering he'd endured.

They all did.

"We've captured Peter Pettigrew." Amelia snapped.

"What?" That caught his attention. Sirius surged forward, and a startled Amelia scrambled backwards. Sirius scowled. "You've caught him? Good – get me out of here."

"Sirius–"

"I've spend ten years of my life here, for the murder of one wizard – and don't pretend that any of you cared about those poor muggles that died, too – and I'm innocent, obviously, if he's still alive, so let me _out_!"

"Sirius–"

"You can't deny it, Amelia Bones!" He shouted. "You were _wrong_. You and your precious ministry were wrong. Dumbledore was wrong! And here I am, paying the price for your mistakes – so fix it!"

"Sirius, we _are,_" Amelia snapped. She pulled a ring of keys out of her pocket and unlocked the door of his cell. "Shut up and come with me, you're getting food and a shower – and probably a change of clothes."

"Oh," Sirius deflated. "Oh."

"Yes. 'Oh' indeed," Amelia rolled her eyes, though she was careful not to stare too much at him. His years of imprisonment had changed him. He looked haggard, and wild. Gone was the spark of charm and mischief that he had been known for in his youth. The Sirius Black before her was… worn down; angry; cynical and bitter.

She didn't blame him.

"Come on, Sirius, let's get you cleaned up." She took him by the arm and led him away from his cell and the dementors, and as they passed the other prisoners – some raving mad and some maddeningly quiet – she vowed to reinvestigate the histories of all the inmates.

Just in case.

* * *

"You wrote in the diary."

Su had barely gotten her bearings – down in the Death Chamber, of course – when Ana sprung upon her, looking almost as disapproving as her mother.

"Hello to you, too," Su rolled her eyes, standing up. She was feeling giddy, and light, ever since they'd captured Peter Pettigrew and set in motion the freeing of Sirius Black. A great burden had been lifted off of her, and a whole bunch of problems solved.

Sirius was free, so no more suffering in Azkaban. Pettigrew was imprisoned, which meant no resurrections of Dark Lords. Harry now had a safe, happy – and _legal_ – home to go to, which meant he was out of the grip of the damned Dursleys.

All she had to do was throw the diary in a fire or something, and the world would be saved. Well, there was still the matter of Voldemort's ghost floating around Europe or something, but an insubstantial villain was much easier to deal with than snake-face.

"I thought you were smarter than that, Su Ren Li," Ana stomped her foot – actually _stomped her foot_ – and marched towards Su. "You know what that diary is capable of. What if Voldemort possessed you? What if he found out about me – about where we came from? You know that he's obsessed with immortality, he'd stop at nothing to figure out all our secrets."

"Ana, _we_ don't even know all our secrets," Su retorted. "It's why we're a mystery. Besides, I thought he was obsessed with ruling the world, not immortality."

"Elixir of Life, Bottled-Memory," Ana ticked off her fingers. "Resurrection rituals. I think it's safe to say that he really, really doesn't want to die."

Su snorted. "Who _wants_ to die?"

"You shouldn't have written in the diary," Ana returned to her point. "That was dangerous and stupid. What were you thinking?"

"I wasn't!" Su rounded on the other girl, scowling. "I wasn't, okay? I don't know what came over me – it was like was _compelled_ or… something."

They both froze, frowning over the implications of that statement.

"That explains _so much_," Su whispered. "Why Ginny didn't have many friends, why she so intent on getting the diary back – why Harry wrote in the book in the novels… _of course_ he would have a safeguard on the diary. How can he suck anyone's soul through their writing if nobody writes in it?"

"You can't keep it," Ana continued. "We'll have to destroy it. But when? How?"

"Easy," Su shrugged. "Throw it in the fire in the common room."

"You won't have much opportunity for that," Ana pointed out. "The common room is almost always occupied – not to mention the portraits."

"Well what would _you_ do then, smarty-pants?" Su dropped down and sat back against the wall, glaring at the Veil fluttering in some non-existent wind. She was less afraid of it now, though it still frightened her, but having it show up in her dreams near-constantly was gradually lessening its intimidation.

"You're ruining my mood," she continued to Ana. "Can't you just let me be happy that we won this one? Pettigrew's behind bars, and Sirius is free. Happy endings for everyone."

"Except for you, if you can't get rid of that diary," Ana pointed out.

"Whatever," Su huffed. "Hey – how do you access the library in my head?"

Ana blinked, surprised by the sudden change in topic.

"Through the Veil."

"What?" Su whipped around so fast that she hit her head on the wall. Ana sniggered. "Through the Veil."

Ana shrugged. "It's not the real Veil," she explained. "It's just a reminder. I… I got weak. I didn't want to live in your head anymore, and I thought Death would be easier but… well, I found the rest of your brain instead."

"You could have _killed us_!" Su gasped.

"I didn't though."

Su dropped her head into her hands. "I will never understand you. Never. Weirder than Luna Lovegood, _I swear_."

"Do you want see it or not?" Ana snapped, and Su sighed, looking up at the Veil.

It shivered in a non-existent wind, and she could hear it whispering in her ears, though she couldn't make out the words.

"No," she said. "I don't think so. I'm not that brave."

* * *

Sirius's trial had been very rushed. The _Daily Prophet_ had predictably gone for the 'look-how-awesome-we-are-we-found-a-Death-Eater-and-set-free-an-innocent-man-we're-totally-competent-what-are-you-talking-about' angle, and so, while recovering in Saint Mungo's, Sirius found himself bombarded with apologetic mail and also a lot of marriage proposals, most of which were very silly and kind of creepy.

Dumbledore had not visited, an absence that Sirius was grateful for. He wasn't sure how he'd be able to face the headmaster – the man who had let him rot in prison for ten years and never visited, not even to ask '_why?_' Sirius wasn't sure if he could ever trust any of his friends again, after they abandoned him so easily.

Except… except, perhaps, Remus. It wasn't his fault really. Sirius had suspected _him_ of being the traitor first, after all. And Remus would never have been allowed to visit Azkaban, as a Dark Creature whom the ministry suspected would try and break Sirius out of prison. So… perhaps Remus could be forgiven. Perhaps.

Mostly, though, Sirius wondered about his godson. A very helpful Amelia Bones wrote him letters about Harry Potter – about the rumours surrounding his disappearance from the wizarding world eleven years ago, his being sorted into Gryffindor, and his friendship with Neville Longbottom and Su Li.

Sirius was glad for Harry – he remembered the Longbottom boy, and had heard about what happened to Frank and Alice. The Li's had been purebloods for ages, but that was less about actual blood purity, and more that there were just more purebloods in China; larger population and all that.

As far as Amelia could tell, they were good, smart kids, and with the help of the prankster Weasley twins and a mysterious map – Sirius was quite sure that he knew _exactly_ what map it was, though he had no idea how the twins had gotten their hands on it – Harry and his friends had been the ones to capture Pettigrew and prove Sirius innocent.

He wasn't sure how to feel about the godson rescuing his godfather. He was quite sure that _he_ was the one who was supposed to look out for Harry, not the other way around.

Still, he wasn't about to complain. He was a free man, recovering in Saint Mungo's. His godson was some kind of pranking genius – he'd never have thought of putting the potion in the pumpkin pie, though James might have… or Peter – and had found the Map, and made friends, and apparently defeated a Death Eater last year as well.

Sirius was feeling both ridiculously proud and painfully sad.

_James should be around for this,_ he thought. _He'd be so thrilled. He'd probably congratulate those Weasley twins for corrupting his son… they're Molly Prewett's boys aren't they? Fabian and Gideon's nephews… the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it?_

He jumped when someone knocked on the door.

_Please, _please_, be a friendly face,_ Sirius prayed to whatever deity might be listening.

"Come in," he called, wincing at the hoarseness of his voice.

A pale, tired-looking Remus Lupin peered through the door, hovering sheepishly at the edge of the room. Sirius brightened immediately; only to hesitate when he saw how distant his once-and-maybe-soon-to-be-again best friend was behaving.

"Remus," he said, feeling suddenly very old. "Come in. I don't bite."

Remus nodded and made his way into the room, closing the door behind him.

They were both silent as Remus approached the bed, guts clenching in anxiety.

Remus hovered by Sirius's bedside, and opened his mouth to say something only to close it again. He was entirely speechless.

"I know," Sirius said after a moment, looking morose. "It's a very _serious_ situation, isn't it? I thought they'd throw me to the _wolves_ or at least the _dogs_, but everyone is taking this very _seriously_." He glanced up at Lupin… and waggled his eyebrows.

Remus burst into laughter.

"That," _gasp-chortle-snort,_ "was terrible!"

Sirius grinned. "If there was ever a time for bad puns, it would be now."

"I'll say," Remus gasped for breath, wiping the tears from his eyes. "You were never very funny, Sirius. No matter how hard you tried."

"And yet you always laughed," Sirius pointed out.

"I think it was mostly pity," Remus nodded.

They lapsed into silence, less rigid than before, but still deeply uncomfortable. Remus sighed and pulled up a chair.

"Forgive me?" He asked. "I never… I believed Dumbledore, and I shouldn't have. I know you – knew you, at least – and you would never, _never_ have betrayed James. For anything. And it might sound like an excuse – but I had my doubts at times. Concerns. I wanted to confront you, to ask you why… or to find out if you'd been imperiused… but they would never have let a werewolf into Azkaban unless they were putting me in a cell… although I did consider becoming your next-door neighbour for a time."

"No you didn't," Sirius scoffed. Remus's expression remained grim.

"I did, actually. I had nothing else to live for," he murmured. Sirius frowned, but was quiet. "Only, I wasn't sure which law I'd try to break in order to get myself in there… and then Dumbledore offered me a job–"

"_Dumbledore_," Sirius growled. "He can just bloody get over himself."

"Sirius –"

"You have an excuse," Sirius nodded at Remus, and his expression softened a little. "I know you Remus, and I know that you would have wanted to be sure, that you were never sure that I was the traitor. I forgive you… if you forgive me. Dumbledore, though. He should have _come_. He should have seen me – even if it was only to ask me _why_."

"I know, my boy," the two former Marauders jumped, having not noticed Dumbledore entering the room. "I am so very sorry."

Sirius scowled. "Bugger off, Albus. I'm not in the mood."

"Sirius, please," Dumbledore moved forwards, but Sirius just turned over in the bed and pulled the sheets up to his chin, sulking.

"Some other time," Sirius spat out.

Dumbledore looked pleadingly at Remus, who shrugged, helpless.

To tell the truth, he was feeling torn. On the one hand, he had a great respect for Albus Dumbledore, and knew him to be a man who fought for what was good and right, but he also understood that Dumbledore was _just_ a man. Men make mistakes.

Sirius was his best friend – or had been, once – and Remus could understand his pain. The betrayal. The bitter taste of the question – _why?_

He stood up and walked towards Dumbledore, gently leading him out of Sirius's room while the former prisoner of Azkaban sulked.

"Give him some time, professor," he murmured. "What did you want to talk to him about?"

Dumbledore sighed. "I had hoped to speak with him about Harry."

"Harry," Remus murmured. "How is he doing? He's settled into the wizarding world now, isn't he? He's gotten used to it? I know you said I couldn't visit him before because he shouldn't know about his own fame… and I know you wouldn't let me visit in June because he was still adjusting… but please, sir. He's James's son – and Lily's. I just…"

"Remus, my dear boy," Dumbledore sighed. "I cannot tell you where his muggle home is. No one knows – the better to keep him hidden from Death Eaters. I am sorry."

"So when can I see him?" Remus's grip on Dumbledore's sleeve became tighter, more desperate. "I haven't seen him since he was a child… Dumbledore, I've written hundreds of letters – I even sent them the muggle way – and he's never replied. Not even to one."

Dumbledore hung his head, looking guilty.

"I'm sorry, my dear boy." And before Remus could as what he was sorry _for_, Dumbledore had pulled himself out of the werewolf's grip and walked away.

* * *

_When did you write this diary?_

_Trying to puzzle out my identity, are you Ren? Very well, this diary was written over the course of my school year from 1942 to 1943._

_So… you lived during World War II?_

_You refer to the muggle war? _

_Yes._

_Are you a muggle-born?_

_Does it matter?_

_…_

_I'm a Li. The Li's have been purebloods for generations. Are you a muggle-born? Riddle isn't a pureblood name. _

_I'm not a muggle-born. No. _

_…_

_So your name is Ren Li. How old are you, Ren?_

_I was twelve in July. Why do you ask?_

_No reason. Just curious. Does this mean that you are in the same year level as Harry Potter?_

_…_

* * *

"Is that a diary?"

Su jumped and slammed the book closed, heart hammering in her rib cage as she looked up from Tom Riddle's diary and into Blaise Zabini's amused eyes.

"Don't worry, Su," he chuckled. "I'm not going to pry."

"Sorry," she mumbled, blushing. "It's private, that's all."

"I imagine so," Blaise grinned, while Su tucked the book back into her bag.

"So, Blaise Zabini, what brings you to this neck of the library?"

"It's been a week since that scare on Halloween," Blaise dropped into the chair opposite her, kicking his feet up onto the table. "I wanted to know if the rumours were true."

"Which rumours? Are there any in particular that come to mind?"

Blaise's eyes narrowed while his smirk widened.

"Did you capture a Death Eater?"

"Yes."

"With help from Gilderoy Lockhart?"

Su scowled. _"No."_

"With help from Harry Potter, Neville Longbottom, and the Weasley twins?"

"Yes. And Luna Lovegood."

"Lovegood? What'd she do?"

"Helped the twins tamper with Lockhart's stuff."

Blaise whistled. "I'll have to rethink my opinion of her."

"Please do."

"Was the Death Eater you captured involved in the deaths of Potter's parents?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"He betrayed the Potter's location to Volde- Darth Volder. You know, you should get over the name thing. It's only a name. Also, it's French. I thought the English hated the French."

"Su, you're English, you should know."

"I'm Australian."

"Really? That explains the accent."

"Was the Death Eater you captured involved in the death of _your_ family?"

Su blinked. "What makes you think that?"

Blaise shifted, looking… was he embarrassed? "You were on edge for weeks before this. You were so anxious on Halloween… I thought it must have been personal for you. You _did_ say you lived with your Aunt and Uncle, so I… I supposed that your parents must've been casualties of the war."

"No, they… no," Su's fingers went to the necklace at her throat, fidgeting with it. "There was an accident. When I was nine. I lost my family."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"It's not all bad," Su tried to smile, but she didn't think that the expression made it all the way to her eyes. "I mean – I got to come to Hogwarts and make friends with you, and Harry, and Neville, and the twins. I've gotten to see some pretty spectacular things."

"Like a boggart," Blaise scowled. Su sighed.

"Bad things happen, sometimes," she said. "We can't always help it. We just have to make the best of it, and try to stop other bad things from happening."

She tugged on the necklace again, and blushed when she realised what she was doing.

"Oh. Your necklace," she hurriedly moved to unclasp it. "I'm sorry. I meant to return it after we captured Pettigrew, but everything's been a little…" she glanced at the bag with Tom Riddle's diary in it, "… hectic."

She reached over the table and grabbed Blaise's hand, pressing the necklace into his palm.

"Thank you, Blaise," she smiled at him. "You're a good friend."

"Keep it," Blaise pushed it back at her. "It's… it means that you're under the protection of the Zabini family. It means that you're my friend."

"You said that it keeps me healthy," Su frowned, looking at the necklace in her hand.

"It does," Blaise nodded. "And it protects you from minor physical wounds. It just _also_ means that… that you're always welcome in my house."

"Do all your friends have something like this?"

Blaise shook his head. "The Greengrass's and the Nott's are family friends, so they have their own permission to seek sanctuary at any Zabini home. This is… well, the Li's don't really run in the same social circles as my family so… I mean…"

He scowled and turned away from her, his Slytherin charisma escaping him.

Su smiled and stood up, walking around the table so that she could kiss him on the cheek. He blushed and tried to smile and scowl at the same time, wiping her kiss off with the back of his sleeve.

"No need for sappiness," he muttered.

"Thank you, Blaise," she said. "Your friendship means a lot to me."

"And so it should."

Su lifted the chain again and clasped it around her neck. "Do you have any more questions for me? I should really get back to Ravenclaw tower before curfew."

"Just… are you staying at Hogwarts over the holidays?"

"I don't know yet. Why?"

Blaise shrugged with forced nonchalance.

"If you weren't… I was going to invite you to the Christmas Eve Gala at Zabini Manor. Potter could come too, I suppose. And Longbottom. The Weasleys… I mean…" he shrugged, a little helpless, and Su laughed.

"Not your social circles?" She teased.

"Pretty much."

"I'll see," Su grinned, and picked up her bag. "Thank you for your… the necklace. Your friendship. You know what I mean." She bent and hugged him quickly, before walking off.

"You're welcome," Blaise murmured, watching her go.

He sighed and dropped his head into his hands. Su was trouble. Or not so much trouble as a trouble-attractor. He thought back to his first meeting with her on the train to Hogwarts – the way she'd piqued his interest.

He should have just ignored her – dismissed her. At least then he wouldn't go half-mad with concern every time she got herself into the hospital wing. The girl was almost as injury-prone as Longbottom – although, to be fair, Longbottom was improving.

All this worrying… it was going to be the death of him!

* * *

The first Quidditch match against Slytherin was gloriously uneventful. No rogue bludgers running around after Harry. No Lockhart removing anyone's bones.

It was actually quite a long match, about four hours, before Harry spotted the snitch hovering right behind the Slytherin Keeper. He'd dived and caught it before Malfoy even realised what was happening.

Su wasn't sure whether to laugh or to pity the poor Slytherin Seeker – he _was_ pretty pathetic. When she spoke to Blaise about it, he'd just shrugged and told her that Malfoy's ego could use a little deflating.

"Congratulations on your win, Harry!" Su and Neville burst into the Gryffindor change rooms, Su disguised as a lion in Harry's Gryffindor scarf for the day.

"You took your sweet time, though," Neville grumbled.

Harry laughed and opened his arms, and his two best friends launched themselves at him. The Weasley twins appeared and joined the huddle, having become much closer to the trio after working with them on the Pettigrew Problem.

"I'm feeling left out," Oliver pretended to pout. Su rolled her eyes and wiggled out of the group hug to go over and wrap her arms around the Captain.

"You did good," she told him. "Even if, by some miracle, Malfoy had caught the snitch, you still would have won."

"I know," Oliver sighed happily. "I have the best team. Best Chasers. Best Beaters. Best Seeker." He sniffed, and Fred laughed.

"You're not about to cry on us, are you, Wood?"

Katie Bell sidled up to them and smiled slyly at Oliver. "Best Keeper?" She asked.

Oliver blushed. "Well, I like to think that I'm pretty good… but when you say _best_… I mean, I did let Montague fake me out… and Flint got past me on that Kelpie Wrench…"

"BEST KEEPER! GROUP HUG!" George roared, and he launched himself at his captain. Laughing, the rest of the Gryffindor Quidditch team (plus Neville, and Colin Creevey apparently) stacked themselves on top of Oliver Wood.

"This is our year," Oliver mumbled, and he was probably crying underneath Fred's armpit – though whether from the emotion or from the smell was debatable. "We're going to win the cup this year. I can _feel_ it!"

* * *

"Are you going to write a letter to your godfather?" Su asked Harry, as they huddled by the fire in the Gryffindor Common Room, Su hidden under Harry's invisibility cloak.

"I– I don't know." Harry shrugged, looking into the flames. "I want to. But I don't know what I'd say. What if he doesn't want to take me in? What if he thinks I'm a freak, like the Dursleys?"

"No one could think you were a freak, Harry," Su murmured.

"Except Wood," Neville pointed out. "Who thinks you must have been born on a broom. But he doesn't count, because we all know he's Quidditch-mad."

Harry smiled, but he didn't turn to look at either of his friends (though one was invisible).

"I just don't know what I'd say," he admitted.

"Would you rather meet him, face to face?" Su asked.

Harry nodded. "I think it would be easier… if I could see him. Like he'd be really _real_, you know? Like he's not just something I made up, or wished for, but _real._"

"Yeah," Neville sighed.

"What if… what if you came to my place over the hols?" Su asked. "Or Neville's, maybe? We could spend Christmas together – and Blaise even invited us to a ball or something at his place on Christmas Eve – and then on one of our spare days we could trot off to Saint Mungo's and visit him?"

"Wouldn't Dumbledore put a stop to it, though?" Harry asked, remembering how Dumbledore had interfered with their plans in summer.

Su pulled up the invisibility cloak so that she could flash Harry and Neville a cheeky grin.

"Not if we don't tell him."

"You can stay with me, Harry!" Neville grinned. "Gran won't mind. We can set up another bed in my room! It'll be like–" he cut himself off, blushing.

"It'll be like what, Neville?"

"Like we're brothers," he mumbled. "Or something."

Harry beamed. "Brothers. I like that."

* * *

Su frowned at the diary in her hands, glancing over at her sleeping roommates.

Lisa hadn't asked about it again, which was a relief. She'd been half-afraid that her former friend would try to steal the diary as she had stolen Su's essays in first year… but there was really no _reason_ for Lisa to take the diary, so Su had relaxed. Somewhat.

The diary _called_ to her, and it was starting to freak her out. Ana had taken to only showing up in her dreams occasionally, to berate her for writing in it.

She'd managed to avoid the diary since it mentioned Harry Potter, but tonight she'd found herself climbing out of bed and pulling it out of her trunk, before sitting on the bed and just holding it in her hands.

"You're being ridiculous, Su Ren Li," she murmured to herself. "Just go to sleep."

She threw the diary beneath her pillow and drew the curtains, promising herself that she'd sleep in the next morning – which was a Saturday.

She was asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow, but instead of nonsensical, random dreams, or Ana's haunt in the Death Chamber, she found herself standing in the middle of… it looked like some kind of common room.

There were snakes everywhere – carved into the furniture and the walls and around the fireplace. There were no people around. No signs of life. The only sounds in the room were her own heartbeat and the fire crackling in front of her.

"So… you must be Ren Li."

She screamed, turning around to find herself faced with a handsome boy – probably sixteen or so – smirking at her. She stumbled over her own feet and fell painfully on her bum. If this was a dream it was a very solid dream.

The boy smirked – and she noticed he was wearing Slytherin robes. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"Are you… Tom Riddle?" Su asked. _Please say no, please say no, let this be just another dream. Let this be Ana playing a prank._

His smirk widened. "Yes, actually. I am. You know, you're smaller than I thought you'd be. Most twelve-year-olds I know are taller. _Were_ taller, I suppose. They're not twelve any more. Haven't been twelve for a long time."

Su's heart was in her throat, beating loud and fast. She couldn't help thinking – _holy shit young Voldemort. I'm in Voldemort's head! Or he's in mine. Shit, can he hear what I'm thinking?_

She frowned at him, but Riddle's demeanour didn't change. Hmmm, maybe he _couldn't_ read her mind. That was a relief.

"How… how are you doing this? Where are we?"

Tom swept out his arms in a grand, welcoming gesture. "This is my mind – or the memories of my mind. Welcome to the teenage mind of the greatest wizard of the age."

"You still haven't told me who you are," Su pointed out.

Tom shrugged. "At this stage in my life I had quite a few noms de guerre to choose from. I'm not sure which one my future self has used."

"Run them by me," Su said, managing to clamber to her feet and stumble towards a plush armchair. "I'll let you know."

Tom grinned – and he was _ridiculously_ handsome. It wasn't at all assuring. In fact, his handsome visage frightened Su even more – because how many people had he lured into his trap with that pretty face? Was he luring _her_? Even now?

"Now, Ren," he stalked towards her, and she willed herself not to flinch when he reached out and grasped her blue Ravenclaw tie – what was she doing in her school robes? "That would ruin the mystery, wouldn't it?"

She swallowed, unable to escape his gaze, her eyes locked with his. "I suppose."

Tom smirked again, releasing her tie, and Su forced herself to look away, finding herself hypnotised by the flames in the fireplace instead.

"So…" she began, looking around the room and anywhere that wasn't Voldemort. "This is the Slytherin common room. It's a bit… dreary."

"Comes of being under the Black Lake," Tom murmured, and Su could hear the shrug in his voice. "Come and have a look." Before she knew what was going on, Tom had grabbed her by the hand and was dragging her to a different section of the common room. He swept aside a dark, heavy curtain, and revealed… a palace.

It was beautiful, sitting on the bottom of the lake, probably as big as Hogwarts itself, made out of some kind of glowing blue… metal? Wood?

"The mermaid kingdom," Tom whispered in her ear, and Su shivered. She noticed that he hadn't let go of her hand, and that he was standing very close to her. She didn't know if her racing heartbeat was due to fear or something else – could Voldemort be playing on her almost-teenage hormones? _Was_ he trying to use his obnoxiously attractive face to lure her into some kind of trap?

Still, she couldn't deny it. The Slytherins had a _fantastic_ view.

"It's beautiful," she breathed.

She didn't know how long she stood there, holding Voldemort's hand, just gazing out the giant glass window-wall in the side of the Slytherin common room at the mermaid palace, but she did know that as soon as Voldemort let go of her hand she woke up.

And when she woke up, she heard screaming.

* * *

**A/N: **_Yes. Everyone knows what happened. I don't need to explain it. _Of course_ the Basilisk was going to show up at some point. Voldemort's just too stubborn to go down without at least _trying_ to possess someone first. _

_Anyway: Christmas episode next, I think. Please tell me what you think guys!_


End file.
